Category: independent research on IPOs
Peloton Interactive: Riding High on Consumer Spending
Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ: PTON), a high-end fitness products company, is a relatively recent addition to our Battle Road IPO Review Consumer sector coverage. Founded in 2012 and based in New York City, Peloton is expected to record revenue of $1.48 billion in its fiscal year ending June 30th 2020, along with a loss per share of $1.29. This compares to revenue of $915 million in fiscal year 2019, during which the company recorded an operating loss of $113 million, excluding depreciation expense.
Peloton announced the pricing of its 40 million Class A share IPO on September 25th. The deal was priced at $29 per share, and was led by a remarkably large number of underwriters—21 in total—reflecting in part the recent IPO drought. Peloton also announced the concurrent sale of 3.5 million additional shares of its Class A common stock in a private placement to entities affiliated with TCV, an existing shareholder. Following the IPO, roughly 45 million Class A and 236 million Class B common shares outstanding for a total of 281 million shares outstanding, with Class B shares holding 99 percent of the voting power. At a recent share price of $28, Peloton Interactive possesses a market cap of roughly $7.9 billion.
Peloton Interactive positions itself as an interactive fitness platform at the “nexus of fitness, technology and media,” which creates, in its own words, “engaging to the point of addictive” programming for customers. PTON is primarily a high-end exercise bike and treadmill company, with approximately 69 percent of sales coming from connected products, with most of the remaining 31 percent from subscriptions associated with its product sales. Over the last five years, the company has sold over 580,000 exercise bike and treadmills, with about 97 percent of the total sold in the U.S. Roughly 50 percent of revenue comes from sales from its website onepeloton.com. Other channels include showrooms. The company claims over 1.4 million member subscribers, who completed over 58 million workouts in fiscal 2019.
To peruse Peloton’s product offerings on its company website is to realize just how strong today’s consumer economy has become. Pricing for Peloton’s exercise bike begins at $2,245, with a one year limited warranty, and pricing for its tread machine begins at $4,245, with a one year limited warranty. In the most recent quarter ended September 30th, Peloton reported revenue of $228 million, a 104 percent increase over the prior year, along with a gross margin of 46 percent, flat with the prior year. The company’s operating loss was $51 million, as compared to an operating loss of $56 million in the prior year. Post-IPO Peloton has a strong balance sheet, with roughly $1.5 billion in cash, or $5.25 in cash per share, and no debt, though we do note that the company is currently not profitable.
Tags: IPO Research, independent research on IPOs, independent stock research; independent research on Peloton Interactive, independent research on Consumer stocks; independent research on Consumer IPOs.
Dropbox: Keeping Teams in Sync
Founded in 2007 by Andrew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, and based in San Francisco, Dropbox (NASDAQ: DBX) provides a cloud-based content collaboration software platform that enables users to share, synchronize, and access digital files. Consensus estimates call for revenue of $1.3 billion and EPS of $0.20 in 2018, followed by $1.6 billion and $0.31 in 2019.
Dropbox debuted on the NASDAQ on March 23, 2018, in a 36 million Class A share IPO priced at $21, with 26.8 million shares offered by the company, and roughly 9.2 million shares sold by selling shareholders. Thus, the company netted roughly $540 million in the process. The IPO was led by a veritable army of 12 investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Securities, BofA Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank Securities, Allen & Company, RBC Capital Markets, and others. Post-offering, there are 53 million Class A shares and 339 million Class B shares for a total of roughly 392 million shares outstanding. At a recent share price of $30, Dropbox’s market cap is roughly $11.8 billion.
With over 500 million registered users, Drop Box has created a digital collaboration platform that enables consumers and businesses to share, synchronize and access digital files. It does so by utilizing proprietary block-level sync technology to speed the process of file uploads and downloads. The company embeds multiple levels of redundancy and security to protect against data loss. Dropbox helps geographically-dispersed work teams stay in synch and share files, a feat which is increasingly important to businesses of all sizes, as 30 percent of full-time employees work primarily on a remote basis, with 20 percent of the workforce comprised of temp workers, contractors, and freelancers, according to a 2016 Deloitte study. Dropbox currently stores over one billion gigabytes of data.
Dropbox is a pioneer of the “freemium” business model, through which a company offers a free version of its product, and attempts to up-sell and cross-sell customers to paid plans. Of the company’s 500 million registered users, 11 million are paying customers. Dropbox offers two subscription services for individuals and microbusinesses, and three plans for businesses. Of the 11 million paying users, 30 percent subscribe to a Dropbox Business plan, while 50 percent of subscribers to its individual plans use Dropbox for work purposes.
Dropbox is as much focused on converting free members to paid memberships as it is converting lower-tier paid subscribers to its higher priced, and more feature rich plans. 40 percent of new Dropbox business teams included a member who was previously a subscriber to a paid individual plan. 300 million of the company’s 500 million users are, according to Dropbox, “more likely than other registered users” to pay over time, based on Dropbox’s analysis of their email domains, devices, and geographies.
Dropbox recorded revenue of $1.1 billion in 2017, growth of 31 percent over the prior year. The company’s gross margin improved to 67 percent, from 54 percent a year earlier. Dropbox narrowed its operating loss from $194 million in 2016, to $114 million in 2017. As the majority of customers opt for an annual plan, Dropbox typically bills customers at the beginning of their subscription term, and thus generates a fair amount of cash up-front. Thus, the company has been free cash flow positive for each of the last two years, with free cash flow of $137 million in 2016, and $305 million in 2017.