Liberty Posted November 17, 2011 Author Share Posted November 17, 2011 What I like is that it obviously seems to be part of a larger plan, and I imagine that the cross-selling opportunities will be big. "The HealthConnect online quoting solution and network provides us the missing piece in our Health product portfolio. It brings in top rated insurance companies like Aetna and Horizon to Ebix, providing both sides an opportunity to cross-sell complementary services to each other's client base." Robin Raina added, "With 85% plus recurring revenue streams, good history of profitability, consistent margins, low customer attrition rates, proven management record, complimentary technologies and SaaS based architecture, HealthConnect met all the criteria of a good acquisition target for Ebix. This deal is a strategic step forward to establish Ebix as a Health Information Exchange and is likely to be followed by other strategic steps in coming months and years." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha231616967560 Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 EBIX is up 3%+ today, 17% in the last month. Heavy institutional accumulation. It's curious for such a negative market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted November 29, 2011 Author Share Posted November 29, 2011 EBIX is up 3%+ today, 17% in the last month. Heavy institutional accumulation. It's curious for such a negative market. It was up almost 5% at one point. Could be the beginning of a short squeeze, but we'll have to wait and see. Things seem to have gotten more positive on the secondary market after their recent acquisition. Personally, I would have liked it if the share price had stayed depressed longer so they could keep buying back at ridiculously low prices. Maybe year-end tax loss selling will bring it back down and offer the opportunity to mop up more shares... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha231616967560 Posted November 29, 2011 Share Posted November 29, 2011 I think that it is still a steal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted November 29, 2011 Author Share Posted November 29, 2011 I think that it is still a steal. I agree, but I prefer a ridiculous steal ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankap Posted November 30, 2011 Share Posted November 30, 2011 I agree that probably institutions are accumulating.In Q3 BMO Financial initiated a position with 2.09 million shares.There are others also who increased their positions. As per Nov 15 reports shorts have not covered yet.Short No. is still at 11.6 m shares. Tomorrow Ebix shareholders should see the first dividend in their account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted December 21, 2011 Author Share Posted December 21, 2011 http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1338169469001/improving-the-insurance-industry-through-cloud-computing Short interview on FOX business. Nothing truly new, but Robin reiterates at the end that he's not looking for EBIX to be acquired any time soon and thinks the company is just getting started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankap Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 There has been significant insider buying in Dec.Neil D Eckert, one of directors bought 24,500 shared in Dec.This is substantial considering his total holding is 112k shares.Neil has been associated with Ebix for a long time.He is ex CEO of Brit insurance who were the first investors in Ebix in 90's when Ebix was almost bankrupt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted December 27, 2011 Author Share Posted December 27, 2011 There's also been a smaller insider buy by another director, Benz Hans U., of 1,000 shares at $21.24 (bringing his holdings to 79,780). Stock is up 5.55% today, after hitting almost 8% intra-day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha231616967560 Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Dividend increased from $.01 to $.04 - apparently the acquisitions pipeline is slowing down, or the company is attempting to control their fate at the hands of unscrupulous Seeking Alpha authors... I'm not sure that I love this move as a shareholder, but there could certainly be worse news than this. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ebix-board-of-directors-authorizes-regular-quarterly-dividend-of-004-per-share-2012-02-03 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keerthiprasad Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 Yeah I would've preferred that they just up the buy backs again. Still seems cheap enough to justify in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 3, 2012 Author Share Posted February 3, 2012 Dividend increased from $.01 to $.04 - apparently the acquisitions pipeline is slowing down, or the company is attempting to control their fate at the hands of unscrupulous Seeking Alpha authors... I'm not sure that I love this move as a shareholder, but there could certainly be worse news than this. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ebix-board-of-directors-authorizes-regular-quarterly-dividend-of-004-per-share-2012-02-03 That's incorrect. The dividend was already 4 cents: http://www.ebix.com/pressrelease_text.aspx?artid=208 And since they just acquired a health exchange, it doesn't seem like acquisition opportunities are slowing much: http://www.ebix.com/pressrelease_text.aspx?artid=218 They've said the dividend would be around 10% of FCF, so they must feel like they can do the acquisitions they need and buybacks with the remaining 90% (and if they really need more, they can easily raise debt since they have very little of it). I would have preferred no dividend and more buybacks, but a small one is fine, and the stock is going up so fast that soon buybacks might not be as attractive anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha231616967560 Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 That's incorrect. The dividend was already 4 cents: http://www.ebix.com/pressrelease_text.aspx?artid=208 You're right. My mistake. Thanks for correcting it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Quarterly Revenue of $44.1 Million, up 26% Year-Over-Year Full Year Revenue of $169.0 Million, up 28% Year-Over-Year Q4 Diluted EPS of $0.44, up 6% Year-Over-Year Full Fiscal Year Diluted EPS of $1.75, up 15% Year-Over-Year Q4 Net Income of $17.3 Million, up 9% Year-Over-Year Full Year Net Income of $71.4 Million, up 21% Year-Over-Year Q4 Operating cash flow of $19.4 Million, up 2% Year-over-Year Full Year Operating cash flow of $71.3 Million, up 35% Year-over-Year Margins for year: 41%. Exchanges grew 39%. http://www.ebix.com/pressrelease_text.aspx?artid=223 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooskinneejs Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I wonder whether hiring one of the big 4 audit firms would provide prospective investors with more comfort over the safety of an equity investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alpha231616967560 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 They bought back more than 9% of shares outstanding. That is impressive. Average repurchase price in Q4 was $14.14 I still don't like that they are raising the dividend. Makes no sense to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 I still don't like that they are raising the dividend. Makes no sense to me. Not my preference either, but it still leaves them with 90% of FCF for buybacks and acquisitions, so it's not that bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 If I'm reading things right, they spent 17 million on HealthConnect. A bigger acquisition than I expected, which is good if they got good value (we'll have to wait and see, but they have a great track record there). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biaggio Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 FCF ~$75million EV ~$960 million FCF/EV=~8% growing>15% moat=economic network (network exchanges) guys, does that look right? would that be the right metrics/the right way to look at EBIX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 How do you get an EV of 960m? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biaggio Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 How do you get an EV of 960m? did it in my head roughly = share price of $23.60 x 39374 fully diluted shares + debt - cash Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 How do you get an EV of 960m? did it in my head roughly = share price of $23.60 x 39374 fully diluted shares + debt - cash I could be wrong, but I don't think you should use fully diluted shares for enterprise value (at least, that's not how I've seen it done). http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/enterprisevalue.asp#axzz1p15UAnL3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_value Using that method, current EBIX EV would be closer to ±850m Otherwise you get an EV that is higher than the current market cap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankap Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Liberty- You are right .They paid 17m for Health Connect.The way Robin was explaining , it is the missing piece in the health exchange ecosystem. He also said that they are on the forefront on many deals for Health exchanges for States.He was talking about Ebix getting the first mover advantage in many countries in Africa and other Emerging countries. I guess the moat that they have also has a disadvantage that the sales cycles are very long and it takes a very long time before you can see the revenue . But there is nothing to dislike in today's report, 41% margin and around $20m Cash flow for 4Q. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 I liked the CC. In their business, if they move first somewhere, there's a good chance they'll almost be the only player there because exchanges are more infrastructure than anything else (even better if they don't just have the exchange but a comprehensive end-to-end system). Kind of like in Australia and NZ.. So good they're focusing even more on Africa, Asia-Pacific, South-America, etc. Also good they're hiring more senior sales people and going after bigger deals. Despite over 100% more spent on sales in 2011, they still had nice FCF growth. If they had spent less on sales, their numbers would have looked better short term, but not long-term, as now they've spent on sales but they haven't got much benefits yet because it takes some time to train people and for them to start closing deals (and then because of the model, there isn't a big lump sum, but rather a stream of cash when the customer comes online)... I also really like that they keep branching out into health and financials. These are industries - like insurance - where we just know that paper is on the way out and where one integrated SaaS solution will be more efficient than dozens of independent software systems that run locally and need to be maintained/upgraded/etc.. So the sooner they move there, the more they have a chance to become dominant and become the infrastructure on top of which others build. Happy about the move into mobile. They talked about this a while ago, and I'm glad it's almost done. Once you drive paper out and are on a SaaS platform, why limit yourself to desktops and laptops? Making it available on tablets and phones will make it more convenient for agents/brokers/etc vs competing products, and maybe event drive up marginally the number of transactions on the exchanges (at least at first -- maybe eventually it'll be a substantial amount). They hinted at big announcements coming soon. Partnerships? Big new clients? We'll see. HealthConnect def seems like a strategic piece of the puzzle, and after integrating it with the other pieces they already have, it sounds like they'll have a nice offering to a whole industry. 18m is not that high to pay for that. They said they think they are not strong enough in Europe and want to correct that. Said the macro environment wasn't that great yet, but that an improvement could make a significant difference especially if construction comes back (will help BPO and P&C a lot). And of course better environment means more money spent on IT by insurers and more transactions on exchanges. Still have 23m available out of 100m approved buybacks. Seems like the reason they slowed buybacks in Q4 was because of the acquisition (but that's just my guess). If you exclude non-recurring one-time events form this quarter and the YoY quarter, growth is pretty impressive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mankap Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Ebix is taking all the right steps.Let us see how soon they can monetize these efforts.Robin mentioned they expect 2H to be better than 1H.It would be interesting to watch 2012. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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