It was a pretty solid quarter for the company. There was a ton of panic right off the open as some people were selling their shares for an 18%+ loss pre-market. It's recovered about 13% off those lows.
In our opinion, the company put most all issues to bed regarding the short report. We saw 150%+ year over year growth. And, many have been critical of the company's ability to grow organically (it was the main accusation inside of that report). Stripping out acquisitions, it had organic growth in excess of 70% YoY.
The company is going to reduce the pace of acquisitions in 2022, and it feels it can continue to grow organically at a 40% clip.
Profitability has been another key area of concern for the company. Many feel ballooning losses are taking their toll. Its losses this quarter as a percentage of revenue were actually lower, showing improvement. And, it looks as though the company is going to be releasing some form of guidance next quarter in terms of the path to profitability.
To be honest, I'm just not sure what this company has to do to stop the bleeding. I do believe that if Facebook's earnings didn't cause an overall market slide today, Lightspeed would be in the green.
A couple of major institutions and analysts went to bat for the company last night. BMO maintained its $96 CAD price target, and RBC's is at $65 USD ($82~ CAD).
The biggest shakeup would be the CEO stepping down into a smaller role. However, this isn't really all that surprising. It wouldn't be the first time we've watched someone step away from the day-to-day operations of the company and take on a lesser role. In fact, he's been considering stepping down for quite some time now, since 2015. So, those who point to the short report as the reason for his decision to step down are just false.
We'll have an updated report of Lightspeed here in the next day or two. But, it will certainly remain on the Bull List.