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I think it’s about time long-suffering shareholders were rewarded with something. I think 2021 will be a stellar year provided there is no general market depression. Right now I’ve been caught up in the crypto currency crazy otherwise I definitely be back in
I find it strange that they would give updated guidance at this time though. There still is a lot of uncertainty coming up for the final quarter. Are they trying to boost/sustain the share price for an acquisition? Ofer Druker has made no secret of their desire for further acquisitions
impressive...it means they expect Q4 revenues to be 110 million or so
Getting very tempting to buy back in...im in two minds as the resumption of lockdowns, Brexit debacle and US election could weigh in on stocks...Though stock market seems to have remained calm so far
Then again the stock inexplicably fell yesterday...what was that about? Triggering stop losses to hoover up stock maybe?
From what I understand Unruly is an SSP, which fits in with their aim to create an end to end solution. Perhaps it’s commercially sensitive, but I don’t think we have any insight as to how clients view this or whether it’s superior to more targeted services. I think they can go a lot further to inform shareholders as to the value proposition and like for like revenue streams. It’s clear both R1 and Tremor had major client losses in 2019 but we never obtained clarity as to what happened
On balance, I think Tremor will have a good 2021 provided the economic situation stabilises. You would expect 30% revenue growth if they are to meet finncap projections, which would send them into decent profit. But between now and then there are so many risks. Once the stimulus money runs out, further economic turmoil could wipe out advertising budgets
I don’t know if they are winning new business. I have zero expertise in this industry, but do some reading around the industry in order to try to guess where the fast changing industry is heading. Unfortunately this company is reticent about it’s actual operations, and we rarely get real insight into the rationale behind acquisitions loss/gain of customers. There are a few somewhat solid facts we can surmise about this company however:
- Finncap were expecting revenues of 280-320 million this year and bottom line losses of >60 million. The company seems on course to do better than that. Hence my surprise
- The lockdown caused a significant collapse in client revenue, meaning this companies source of income is not by any means secure. Another lockdown would logically impact revenues
- It seems this business is actually a conglomerate of multiple smaller companies with presumably their own structure, culture and systems. It behaves like a holding company rather than a single well oiled machine like TTD or S4
- The leadership have a poor track record in Matomy media, which was eventually broken up and sold off piecemeal. Their modus operandi seems to be grow by acquisition
- The reviews I’ve read on glass door from insiders (those who have worked for its various businesses) are scathing - there is a really poor opinion of tremors leadership
My overall view is negative to be honest, but it’s so cheaply priced no wonder PIs keep coming back. S4 capital for example are transparent in not counting acquisitions in their growth metrics. Tremor seem good at hiding these figures
Surprised no one has commented
H1 results were predictably poor - 25 million bottom line loss with break even EBITDA
Q3 results are excellent though, much better than I had expected. Proof that the underlying business model works.
I’m tempted to buy back in, but the markets just had a very bad day yesterday and tech stocks in the US are on a pullback. With talks of another lockdown I think the risk to reward is still too high. But I expect a big gain today.
I wussed out and sold my holdings. I’m a long term holder but...the market jitters feel familiar, we could be in for a rough few months with Coronavirus cases accelerating and the economy seemingly unable to recover yet. Not to mention Donald Trumps seeming on the verge of a meltdown
I do think Tremor is an acquisition target, but the sp movements tell me nothing is imminent. But I’d rather miss out on gaining money than risk enduring another massive sp crash
In all honesty having looked at the leadership of competing technology companies I’m not so sure our current board know how to help Tremor flourish. Strategically positioning for the video advertising market was definitely the right move but in he short term they are still carrying baggage and declining revenues from legacy aspects of their business. The unruly acquisition is majorly loss making as well (negative 8million EBITDA last year) o the timing probably worked out badly for the company. I guess we will see whether CTV revenues recover in 2021 and enter back in at a later stage. I still plan to keenly follow this company and industry
For those still in, good luck and honestly I would be happy for you if I’m wrong.
Clearly S4 is looking for a different segment of the market that Tremor is in. They appear focussed on consultancy rather than programmatic service itself. Not much overlap.
But could criteo be a good fit for a merger with Tremor? From 11th Feb:
https://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/criteo-expects-10-revenue-drop-in-2020-as-ceo-clarken-lays-out-survival-plan/
“Criteo is trying to get into OTT and CTV supply, Clarken said. And her background as a leader at Nielsen Watch, the TV ratings and measurement group, indicates that Criteo plans to be a more active player in digital video and CTV.”
...which happens to be exactly where Tremor is focussed
Criteo has a market cap of only 900million, but they hold almost half that in cash reserves. Revenues are going to decline rapidly soon with the upcoming privacy changes diminishing their core business. Perhaps the COVID disruption will hasten their turnaround strategy, and as such it would make sense to look for acquisition targets to augment this. Of course Tremors toxic heritage may put potential acquirers off, but a merger would make perfect sense for both companies. There are really few companies that can benefit from integrating Tremors full stack approach, and Criteo is the only one I can think who are creating a full stack DSP
I know I’m just fantasising, but any thoughts?
I hoped that the buyback could be used to drive up the sp, though clearly it is not being used that way. Sp went up to 150 no problem when the directors sold theirs a couple weeks back, and dropped right back down again after. So I don’t believe it’s just because there are no sellers. However I don’t believe anyone is ‘hoovering up’ the shares either. Frustrating to see low sp when the company has such firepower in its cash reserves.
As for the TU, fair enough. I hope for more details on Q3 performance in September at the HY financials
At the current sp, company needs to purchase around 80,000 shares every day over the next two months in order to complete the buyback. Clearly not going to happen unless there is a significant news update. I hope they at least put out an update for July reporting on improved trading conditions. The last update carried a really somber tone whilst other ad tech companies were quite upbeat
Here is another excerpt from the trading update:
The Company typically structures each transaction 50% in cash and 50% in S4 Capital ordinary shares, ensuring that entrepreneurial management teams are incentivised and motivated at a one firm level. 100% of the equity is purchased to avoid complex, fragmenting earnout structures, which encourages a seamless and instant integration, avoiding operational silos and internal competition.
If we go by what this says...the company has raised 100 million in cash, so they would probably offer 100 million is shares...that’s a 200 million valuation - barely 150p in Tremor shares! But they also state they would offer 5-10x EBIDTA or 1-2x Revenues which would equate to 300million plus valuation
I can’t imagine Tosca or anyone else would accept less than 300p for these shares which equates to 400m valuation, unless they are desperate for an exit?
I noticed that too...I tend to follow Tremors competitors
From the RNS:
S4Capital entered 2020 with a strong deal pipeline and has already completed mergers with Circus Marketing (March 2020) and Digodat (July 2020) and signed a merger with Lens10 (June 2020). The Company continues to have a strong deal pipeline with three potential deals currently in due diligence: one in eCommerce around a major platform in the United States which is expected to be announced imminently, one in Digital Content in Germany and one in Analytics and Measurement in the United Kingdom. There are also several additional potential deals at a letter of intent negotiation stage and various early-stage discussions. The Board believes that despite the economic headwinds caused by covid-19, S4Capital, given its continued growth, is in a unique position to accelerate its acquisition strategy of merging with high-quality, complementary businesses, increasing its scale and capabilities and further stimulating growth.
It’s incredible how aggressive this growth by acquisition strategy is. But I’m skeptical Tremor is a target...as it’s actually larger than S4 and itself composed of several smaller entities, and is not based in the US.
Havent we seen the likes of S4 before in Blinkx and Quindell? S4 seems like a massive pump and dump scheme...no doubt the shares will continue to skyrocket, but I really don’t believe they can take on so many new acquisitions and integrate them effectively. As soon as the deals dry up I envisage a dramatic writedown. I don’t believe Sorrell is quite the genius he’s made out to be...but he does know how to build hype
Agreed
I think the know why RUBI has a higher market cap...it has a track record of proven organic growth with proven tech proposition, so we can be confident it will continue to grow
The jury on tremor is still out, although to those closely following it’s clear the company is also growing. The penny hasnt dropped for the market yet though
FY21 will be the year of jam...and I expect a huge rise 12 months from now...500+ if next years H1 revenues beats Finncaps estimates
With COVID expected to accelerate consolidation in the ad tech sector, I’m sure Tremor are out on the prowl
Rubicon project is valued almost triple this company, and yet H1 forecasts are below 90million. They are the largest independent SSP thanks to recent merger with telaria.
And yet they are valued triple that of Tremor video....despite facing similar falls in revenue in H2
I can’t help but feel it would be a merger made in heaven for Rubicon and Tremor to merge to make a full stack ad proposition that will be able to take on the big boys such as google and the trade desk. Telaria sold Tremor to Taptica in 2017 but it’s becoming increasingly clear that diversified full stack solutions with scale are necessarily to flourish in the post COVID era, so it would be reuniting the companies to some extent
Rubicon project is moving to a NASDAQ listing which I think is the way to go for Tremor to be valued fairly, and this would be a cost effective way to go about it
A 50:50 share merger would value tremor at approximately twice its current value
https://www.oann.com/u-s-and-states-google-antitrust-probe-nears-finish-line/
It seems likely an antitrust suit will be filed. I don’t think Google’s ad tech business will be dismantled, but it could be forced to cede some market share or have limitations placed on its tech stack
Since google receives the majority of ad tech spending (50+ billion pa), even freeing up eg 10% of the total ad spend to other businesses will provide a substantial windfall for tremor and similar ad businesses
Not to mention advertisers are now also pressuring Facebook which is also coming under significant scrutiny
If the ad market is better regulated then companies like tremor could flourish. Right now they are picking up scraps in a recession and still increasing their cash pile, you can imagine how well they’d do with a larger market
Results much worse than I expected, perhaps my expectations were a bit fantastical. Since R1 was not contributing to Q1 last year I had expected them to at least match last years revenue, which itself was at a time of weak performance and mismanagement
That being said, the shrinking performance division has more than halved in revenue which account for at least 25 million reduction compared with last year, and so it’s discontinuation is going to impact less on growth going forward. Not to mention other discontinued operations.
I don’t know what to make of Tim Weller leaving.
I see no excuses for them not to best last years full year revenues...you would expect at least 200million in the 2nd half if trading goes back to normal. But sp will remain depressed until we see significant evidence of growth
Hopefully when the sp is much higher than it is now. At 300p that would be 100 million...
There still £8 million in the buyback left. They can buy 70,000 shares daily at 200p EVERY trading day until september!
Are we expecting a trading update next month? If the results are good, I actually hope they keep it under wraps until September financials so the buyback continues
You probably need to weigh it up in an objective manner, which is not gonna happen when you ask those who have a vested interest in this stock succeeding/failing. Quite silly of you to ask
For what it’s worth, I’m bullish on the prospects of this company though the sp is certainly being manipulated and may continue to be. The chunky buys/sells over the past few weeks without a holding RNS, then the total stop of volume and buyback in the past few days makes me wonder what’s happening. I feel something big is about to be announced, possibly an acquisition? The buyback has been used in the past to pressure behind the scenes negotiations as we saw before the R1 acquisition. I bought more shares last week as it felt like the sp was wanting to move higher
If we look at other digital ad companies like criteo and rubicon project...they expect a 30% fall in Q2 revenue compared with the year prior. For tremor that would roughly mean H1 revenues of 160-180 million, still beating H1 from last year. If they only would release a Q1 update I’m sure volume will spike along with the sp, but sooner or later they’ll have to tell us anyway
If you really need to exit, i would wait until H2 results come in which would be early 2021, at which point the corona impact should have blown over
Would you sell when there is an active buyback? This buyback isn’t a small one...it’s 5% of the company at this rate.
The last few days have had no buyback activity. Price has been falling somewhat, but volume hasn’t been bad at all. Why aren’t they loading up at these levels? It seems unusual. Their previous buyback was consistent daily purchases
Yes we were so close to jam...
Last years H1 revenue was 144 million, with a bottom line loss of about 4 million I think. But that was without R1 contribution in Q1 and without of course Unruly revenue
Although some non core activities have closed down since it can’t amount to much since those were presumably loss making revenue streams
This year? They said they made a solid start to 2020 so I would presume Q1 was 100 million give or take. Q2 will take a nosedive for sure, so perhaps 50 million? That still beats last year and has a good chance of a bottom line profit
If we reach those figures then there will be strong sp movement upwards through H2 as revenues would be anticipated to bounce back (as would the stock market)
Total year revenue will be down but I reckon still will be approaching 400 million
Overall I still hope for 200p plus by he next trading update in mid June, and hopefully 400p by the end of this trading year