The PEXA Group Ltd (ASX: PXA) share price is down 12% after revealing an update. What’s going on?
PEXA describes itself as a world-leading digital property exchange platform and property insights solutions business.
FY24 update
The business said it’s continuing to forecast it will meet its previously announced guidance, excluding the planned Smoove acquisition.
Its group operating EBITDA (EBITDA explained) margin is expected to be 35% or better, with an exchange operating EBITDA margin of between 50% to 55%. Net cash outflows of between $70 million to $80 million are expected for the international and digital growth businesses. Breakeven operating EBITDA is expected for digital growth in June 2024.
Business revenue is expected to be between A$315 million to A$325 million for FY24, excluding the impact of acquiring Smoove. Group operating revenue is expected to be between A$109 million to A$115 million for the full FY24, while the first half is expected to be between A$54 million to A$58 million.
Net cash outflow is expected to be lower in the FY24 second half compared to the FY24 first half, which reflects the impact of cost reduction actions in the FY24 first half. It also assumes that Optima volumes improve with continued improved instruction flows and market growth.
Smoove, a UK-based conveyancing technology provider, is expected to add between A$16 million to A$20 million for revenue in the second half of FY24 and reduce operating EBITDA by between A$4 million to A$6 million in the second half.
Divisional breakdown
With the exchange division, it’s seeing an “improved mix of transactions”, however overall transaction volume growth has been “modest” during the second quarter of 2024.
It’s expecting to see exchange business revenue to be between A$145 million to A$150 million.
In international, following the impact of the Capita-related technology ‘incident’ in April 2023, the flow of new business instructions to Optima Legal has shown “pleasing signs of improvement”, though its market share has not yet recovered to its historical position, while overall remortgage market activity levels remain “relatively modest”, with average monthly market volumes in the first quarter of FY24 being 15% lower than in the prior comparative quarter.
It’s expecting international business revenue for the first half of FY24 to be approximately 10% to 14% lower than the second half of FY23.
With ‘digital growth’, the sales pipeline in the digital growth business remains promising, with good levels of new business development continuing in ID, Value Australia, and Land Insight. However, weak economic conditions are lengthening sales cycles and reducing some of its transaction-based product flows. FY24 first half revenue is expected to be 5% to 10% lower than the FY23 second half, or broadly flat after adjusting for a large one-off fee received in the prior period.
Final thoughts on the PEXA share price
I’m not an expert on PEXA, but I do see it’s fairly close to its all-time low, so this could be a time to consider it as a contrarian investment if the business is able to get back to growth in the coming years.
There are other ASX growth shares I’d rather invest in though.
