mankap Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Another all time high today. Growth and acquisitions are back. Bought back shares worth $55m in last 7 months. Share count is down to almost 35m. I think Ebix can hit $3 EPS in 2016. It is still cheap if you consider the share count at 35 m. EBix confirmed that they have been selected for providing Exchange to London resinsurance market. The revenue from PPL Exchange could be substantial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted May 8, 2015 Author Share Posted May 8, 2015 Up 13%. http://www.ebix.com/PressRelease/PressReleasebyID/336 Q1 Revenues of $63.8 million, up 24% year-over-year Q1 Diluted EPS of $0.51, up 28% year-over-year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Txvestor Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Loved the quarter. Other than for currency issues and emerging market setbacks(eg Brazil mentioned) the revenues would have been even better probably by 2-3m. They appear to be executing quite well on their strategy. Their consulting group is off to a very good start and already having 16% margins, that ramp up as well as the outsourcing of some of the work, as well as growth anticipated from recently signed contracts should get margins up and keep propelling the company eps, any further acquisitions would be icing on the cake. This is a GARP stock again. Management focus seems to have returned to growth again after the IRS issues were settled. This is one situation where the activist Barrington was able to effect very positive change for all shareholders.Best part is they appear to be settling in for the longer term as board members rather than flipping. If they do they can only enhance their reputation going forward. I suspect we are likely to get to near $2 eps this year and on up from there. The share buybacks continue and share count down to 26m. The short interest remains relatively high at around 10m shares or near 40% of the float, though down from around 15m at the end of last year. In retrospect the share buybacks have been very accretive to remaining shareholders and are arguably still so if you have a good long term view of this company. Not sure how much of this the activist is involved with but considering they are on the board it is quite likely they are influencing the capital allocation decisions. If the above is all correct at $30 this is still inexpensivly priced for a GARP stock growing nearer 20% for the next few years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankap Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 I love the buyback. Ebix has bought back around 20% of the outstanding shares since the buyback started. There are many other positives. Revenue guidance increased to $300m and this does not include PPL revenue. I think we can see $3 EPS in 2016. It is still not expensive looking at 2016 EPS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siddharth18 Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 Wow...EBIX at $37... Are the shorts still alive? I see 10 million shares still short, according to the most recent data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted May 18, 2015 Author Share Posted May 18, 2015 Wow...EBIX at $37... Are the shorts still alive? I see 10 million shares still short, according to the most recent data. Couldn't have happened to nicer people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankap Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 All time high at double the average volume Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FFHWatcher Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 Hits $37 in May of this year. Falls back down to $25 for no apparent reason. Just before earnings the stock surges like we have rarely seen. Moves from $27.50 to $31.50 in a week and then has a great quarter. Interesting stock to own, to say the least. Short interest still around 10M shares and the company bought back just over 1M shares at around $28/share. Good timing is an understatement. Company is growing 20-35%/yr and trades at a fwd p/e of not much more than 10-12. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankap Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Short interest is down to 7.6 m now. It is after a long time that short interest had dropped to less than 8 m. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Txvestor Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 Shares outstanding has gone from 39.6m to 32.9m over the last 5 yrs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted April 22, 2016 Author Share Posted April 22, 2016 Almost at $50 now. I don't hear much from shorts lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benhacker Posted April 22, 2016 Share Posted April 22, 2016 I have such mixed feelings about EBIX. I never fully grasped why they would be a great business, and I always felt the CEO was super questionable (but of course many great leaders are super eccentric). However, after the GS deal fell apart there a storm of short blather, and a bunch of accusations and one of the smartest investors I know put together a piece that absolutely obliterated the short thesis item by item and I almost bought for that reason alone.... I think the stock was at $12... I'm still not sure if I made a mistake. Congrats to those who were either lucky on smart on this one... shows how crazy a ride a stock can be even when the business isn't that volatile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ragu Posted April 22, 2016 Share Posted April 22, 2016 [...]I always felt the CEO was super questionable [...] Likewise. Which is why I have and will continue to stay away. Congrats to anyone that invested here and made money. Best, Ragu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Txvestor Posted April 23, 2016 Share Posted April 23, 2016 The shorts are probably too busy scrambling to cover. The shareholder base has turned over significantly in the past couple of years and I believe it is much more stable and resolute in their belief in the company. The company has bought back a significant % of shares in the last few years and at prices much lower than current share price and concentrated the upside in remaining shares. The CEO is no doubt promotional, but the results have been there to back him up. Revenues are up significantly. They did have recent wins with setting up the London insurance exchange, governanace contract in India, and organic revenue growth and consulting revenue continues to grow. In addition they were very disciplined and turned away from overpaying for a deal for xchanging. Its approaching fair value in my view but I beleive it to be a GARP story. It would longer term make a nice tuck in acquisition for a company like Oracle. They have a niche in software services where I don't beleive the mass market has served very well. I remain a holder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted July 20, 2016 Author Share Posted July 20, 2016 Hitting new all-time highs lately. Return since the failed GS going private deal in 2013 has been something like 475%. Congrats to those who bought then, looks like that was the moment of maximum pessimism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Txvestor Posted July 21, 2016 Share Posted July 21, 2016 This thing is still not overpriced. Eps 2.75 next year and less than 20PE and growing at 20% YOY. Two points to be made. Firstly, management bought a lot of stock at much lower prices over the last few years, hence opportunistically comcentrating ownership over this time, and the short interest remains high, though it has come down somewhat recently. The former exacerbated the latter. I wouldn't be surprised to see them be a take out target eventually ala tibco. They have a niche software area that they excel and are leaders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted July 2, 2018 Author Share Posted July 2, 2018 I was just randomly revisiting this after seeing it on an old watchlist. Returns in the past 5 years have been a 47% CAGR... Wow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benhacker Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 I was just randomly revisiting this after seeing it on an old watchlist. Returns in the past 5 years have been a 47% CAGR... Wow. I hadn't checked in in a while either, nice. One of the smartest investors I ever met pitched this hard around $12-14 after the deal break and just demolished the short thesis. I never fully got the business model, but I should have just bought given the short thesis was discredited. Regrets! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted July 2, 2018 Author Share Posted July 2, 2018 I was just randomly revisiting this after seeing it on an old watchlist. Returns in the past 5 years have been a 47% CAGR... Wow. I hadn't checked in in a while either, nice. One of the smartest investors I ever met pitched this hard around $12-14 after the deal break and just demolished the short thesis. I never fully got the business model, but I should have just bought given the short thesis was discredited. Regrets! I was buying around that time, but sold too early, years ago. Just got tired of the drama surrounding the stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doc75 Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 I did so much handwringing over this one. I was even less sophisticated as an investor then as I am now. It was pretty easy to be scared by the shorts because the CEO really was (is?) super promotional, and there were certainly issues with nepotism and internal controls etc. I hemmed and hawed but eventually cashed out at a very modest gain, feeling quite fortunate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Txvestor Posted July 3, 2018 Share Posted July 3, 2018 It sure has been a nice ride. A pity I did not go in heavier. That said it has grown to the size I am comfortable allocating. About a year ago when it pulled back to the low 50s was a good chance to add but it didn’t last long. It is still a good long term growh story and a decent buy in the low to mid 70s in this pricey market IMHO. Its gonna earn ~$4 this year and still growing about 20%. Leverage is more but not so if taking into account the growth they have had, margins have come in down into the low 30% range, and growth has been more India centric of late, but the acquisitions that they have made appear terrific and opportunistic and very disciplined. The CEO says and for now I believe him that as those acquisitions are rationalized margins will had back up into mid 30s and right now it is a growth land grab. e-governance, e-learning, ebix cash and remittance services are really strong growth opportuniies in a developing economy growing at 7% a year. In addition, smartphones and coverage have come to be widely present, there is a large migrant labur force within and outside of the country, and it is a young population in need of learning resources, and the desire of gov't to spread its influence far and wide without corruption means e-governance initiatives are the only way modi has to bypass or rebuild the old corrupt system with any integrity. All these factors are highly favoring the businesses they have invested into. Some of that 47% CAGR you speak of is resetting of expectations in a heavily shorted stock and some of it is growth, but since I don’t know of another company with such strong growth prospects, I have not sold as I think it can potentially still keep compounding at 20% PA. On a PE basis its not expensive at all and that speaks to the innate skepticism still not completely dissipated from the market. There are still over 4M shares shorted. Agree the CEO is promotional(and I rather him not) but maybe he also delivers??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siddharth18 Posted July 3, 2018 Share Posted July 3, 2018 I was just randomly revisiting this after seeing it on an old watchlist. Returns in the past 5 years have been a 47% CAGR... Wow. I hadn't checked in in a while either, nice. One of the smartest investors I ever met pitched this hard around $12-14 after the deal break and just demolished the short thesis. I never fully got the business model, but I should have just bought given the short thesis was discredited. Regrets! Demolishing the short thesis wasn't too hard tbh. Back then, you could see they were generating real cash, had captive customers and had been vetted by multiple banks, law firms and GS **after** being aware of the short thesis. But the biggest of all - RR was attempting to *increase* his stake in the deal with GS, rather than cash out. It was also hilarious to see ad hominem attacks on RR. I fondly remember a forum member here that was a vocal critic of RR. As it turns out, he has deleted his CoBF profile. But I would love to ask him what (if anything) he's learned in the past 5 years about EBIX, or about himself? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LC Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 Thanks for regurgitating this one. I remember it was one of the first pitches I saw on this site, soon after I joined this forum. I never really understood the industry or the drama surrounding the stock at the time, but I wish I had! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted July 4, 2018 Share Posted July 4, 2018 I sold this for a wash, but unlike multibaggers that I sold on valuation I don't regret the sale. IMO it was far from clear that there was no fraud going on. And longs are celebrating post factum where the story could have easily gone the other way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benhacker Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 I sold this for a wash, but unlike multibaggers that I sold on valuation I don't regret the sale. IMO it was far from clear that there was no fraud going on. And longs are celebrating post factum where the story could have easily gone the other way. We can never truly know... but some do better research than others: https://www.scribd.com/presentation/129539959/Understanding-Ebix-IP-asset-Transfer https://www.scribd.com/presentation/129698031/Longlivedassets-note16 Because *you* (or I) don't understand something... doesn't allow the excuse of lucky longs to be used in hindsight. FWIW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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