The Nuix Ltd (ASX: NXL) share price went up around 7.5% today. It’s rebounding strongly.
What’s happening?
Nuix is seeing a recovery after the heavy selloff earlier in the week. It’s still down 11% from the end of last week. But it now it isn’t down as much.
A few days ago Nuix lowered its guidance for revenue against the IPO prospectus numbers it was expecting.
Pro forma revenue is now expected to be between $180 million to $185 million (down from the expected $193.5 million). Annualised contract value (ACV) is now expected to be in a range of $168 million to $177 million (down from $199.6 million).
The 15% drop in the Nuix share price was caused by a few different reasons.
An acceleration in the customer transition to consumption and software as a service (SaaS) licences impacts the revenue profile but delivers significant long-term business model benefits.
The company also reported that the current operating climate has reduced near-term upsell opportunities, while revenue from renewals and new business remain in line with expectations.
Some of Nuix’s law firm, advisory and service provider customers have also recently informed the company of a reduced add-on requirement for existing licenses. This was partly due to the recovery of legal case backlog being slower than anticipated.
However, the company reported strong underlying business performance with substantial increases in new customers won and total and average order values, compared to the same period in FY20.
Positive comments from management
Nuix CEO Rod Vawdrey said: “The fundamental drivers for Nuix are strong and underpinned by a growing order book and pipeline. It reflects the underlying strength of the Nuix software offering, a sticky, loyal customer base, strong growth in new business and an increase in order size.”
Broker thoughts on the Nuix share price
The broker outfit Morgan Stanley has changed its price target for Nuix to $7.50 (down from $10.75), but that still suggests a massive potential rise of around 60% over the next 12 months. Morgan Stanley pointed out that short term demand from the US is hurting, as well as the strong Australian dollar.
Morgan Stanley still thinks that Nuix has a solid long term future and that it’s valued at 53 times the estimated earnings for the 2022 financial year.
