Ryan Hastie explains the case for little-known Urbanise.com Ltd (ASX: UBN) and a simple tool to invest better.
As a passionate investor, something I’ve learned is that it’s not only about the stocks you add to your share portfolio but also about the stocks you add to your watchlist.
Sure, this might sound simple for some. But I’m not talking about adding a ticker symbol to your Yahoo! account or your Commsec account. I’m talking about purposefully reading about a company over a period of time. The more you get to know a company, like how they communicate, how they use accounting, and how they win new business; the better your chances of making a good investment decision.
While this seems very simple, I believe it might be the most underrated, unspoken & underutilized difference between people gifted in the art of investing and those who aim to be. With practice, this way of thoughtful & patient investing can allow you to dig into and get to know every tiny company with huge potential. Those which could one day be a huge success for your portfolio.
Today, I would like to share with you a company I feel you should add to your watchlist.
Urbanise (ASX: UBN)
Urbanise.com Ltd (ASX: UBN) is a cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) business built specifically for large facility management companies, commercial property owners, local Councils, and service providers to streamline the management of large commercial, retail, and industrial real estate assets.
The management of a large residential or commercial building includes a range of important functions. Some of these key areas include monitoring and managing numerous assets, managing and reporting to contractors and site owners, and the development of strategic plans to improve the performance of the operation.
Urbanise software assists to streamline operations in areas including contractor management by tracking work, assigning jobs, and reporting performance, while automating customer communications, data services, analytics, billing & accounting. Urbanise charges a subscription license for the software they provide, but also professional services fees when they assist companies in designing and implementing custom solutions to suit their individual needs.
3 reasons Urbanise shares should be on your watchlist
- Urbanise is experiencing very strong recurring revenue growth in an industry that is undergoing strong digital disruption
- A successful three-year transformational turnaround has set good strategic direction and has brought the company to a small positive net cash flow from operations in the last quarter
- The Urbanise software aids in several functions of a facilities management operation, which creates a significant high switching cost competitive advantage leading to high rates of customer retention
Why I think Urbanise is worth your research time
Urbanise was a popular technology company when it IPO’d in 2014. However, the company ran into trouble in 2016 with supply chain issues, overspending, and a poorly executed strategy. 2017 saw huge write-downs and major overhauls of the Board and Executive team.
Sometimes tough times don’t define you, they refine you.
2017 saw Urbanise with a renewed focus to drop lumpy one-off sales, to build product enhancements that would drive recurring revenue, and a strong dose of financial management to cut expenses and bring the company to breakeven.
Fast forward to Q3 2020 and the results of the business transformation has been quite remarkable. From Q1 2018 to the last reported quarter, Urbanise has grown recurring revenue a whopping 146% from strata and facilities management companies and has slashed operational cash burn from $2.7 million to near breakeven.
With recent runs on the board, Urbanise is building a reputation as a key provider of software services to an industry in need of massive transformative change.
Several facility & strata management thought-leaders believe the industry is just beginning the digital disruption seen in the accounting (Xero) and taxi (Uber) industries. As Urbanise continues to develop its software to solve more problems faced by facility and strata managers, the solutions they provide become inherently “sticky”, and hard to separate from business operations, which often lead to low levels of customer churn.
Some final thoughts
Once you dig into the Urbanise story, you will see that it has had a bumpy ride over the last four years. However, scratching past the surface I think there are a few very promising signs that Urbanise is forging ahead from previous lessons learned and is likely to surprise investors over the coming years.
It is important to note that investing in small companies is risky, which is why I suggest adding a company to your watchlist and getting to know it over time. Think of it like dating, after a few months of careful interactions you are better placed to know if you’d like to take things to the next level. If you want to consider how to learn some of these skills, I would highly recommend the Rask Value Investor Program.
