Oh, I was looking at sales alright. Q2 1999 showed a huge increase, but Q1 was actually down from the prior quarter. Q3-1998 was also down from Q2-1998. In fact if you look at the 4 quarters immediately prior to the most recent one you see:
Q298 1.0
Q398 0.7
Q498 1.4
Q199 1.2
Thus up until this recent quarter their growth has been more than a bit inconsistent. Compare them to recent IPO's in this sector, INFA and SGNT. My guess is that the huge success of INFA caused VIAD to jump into the IPO pipeline prematurely, but INFA was a much more mature company. Their sales in the most recent company were $13.2 million, and they achieved profitability last quarter. The market has given INFA a market cap of $740 million, a PSR of 56 times the most recent quarter. Incidentally I did buy some INFA at IPO, but have sold it as I believe it to be a good company but way overvalued.
Compare also SGNT, another nice company in this sector, but not as mature as INFA, yet much, much more mature than VIAD. They had sales of only $7.5 million last quarter and a narrow loss of only $.02. Despite the fact that they were 3 times as large as VIAD and much closer to profitability, their IPO had a very rocky start. It fell to well below the initial IPO price (which I believe was 8), and even now is not far above it. Still their PSR is 33 times the most recent quarter which in my opinion is still too rich.
Given that you were touting it so quickly after the filing of the initial S1, I presume you are a principal for VIAD, an employee, or a paid spokesperson, and as such have a vested interest. I'm not saying it is a bad company. Quite the contrary it shows promise. And perhaps if they hold the IPO in the pipeline for 6 months to a year it will have a more established track record. But for now, I'd avoid it. Even if VIAD gets a very generous PSR of 33 times the most recent quarter that would imply a market cap of $68 million, barely over the $46 million that they would like to raise.
Good luck,
Carl |
