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Verkkokauppa.com - Weak market decelerates sales development

Verkkokauppa.com downgraded its 2022 guidance. Now, the company expects revenue of EUR 530-590m and adj. EBIT of EUR 12-19m. We retain our HOLD-rating and adjust our TP to EUR 4.7 (6.0).

Weak market and war behind the guidance revision
Verkkokauppa.com downgraded its FY’22 guidance from expecting revenue of EUR 590-640m and adj. EBIT of EUR 19-25m to revenue of EUR 530-590m and adj. EBIT of EUR 12-19m. The start of the year 2022 has been tough and consumer demand has been lacking in durable goods. Russia’s military attack on Ukraine has further decelerated consumer activity. Furthermore, Verkkokauppa.com decided to stop export deliveries to Russia which in 2021 represented roughly EUR 20m, half of the Exports segment’s sales. According to the company’s management, B2B segment has continued its good performance, and in our understanding, the geopolitical situation hasn’t affected the business. Softness in the Finnish consumer electronics market has also infected the demand for evolving product categories, but we expect the evolving categories to recover faster than the main categories. The component shortage has continued and is expected to impact on product availability throughout the year. The company’s management has indicated that possible material cost increases could be shifted to consumer prices. If the uncertainty diminishes during H1 or early H2’22 and consumer demand picks a bit up, the guidance is, in our view, quite cautious.

Normalization of the demand in H2’22 seems uncertain
Before the profit warning, we expected H1’22 to be tough and the demand to recover during H2’22, but now the recovery seems uncertain and H1’22 is clearly weaker than we and markets were expecting. A wide guidance range also indicates the uncertainty among Verkkokauppa.com’s management. In addition to uncertainty, low attractivity of consumer goods is also explained by consumer demand’s shift to services. Moreover, during the pandemic, consumers invested in expensive electronics devices that drove strong sales development in that time.

We made significant downgrades to our estimates
As a result of the profit warning, we have downgraded our estimates. With the exit of Russian exports, the company expects the Export segment not to recover during 2022. Given the fact that B2B has performed well during 2022, the hardest hit was taken by the consumer segment. Thus, we expect a double-digit decline both in consumer and exports segments while B2B is expected to grow strongly during H1’22. We expect consumer demand to start to recover during Q3 and the topline to get back on a clear growth bath in Q4’22. In Q1’22 we expect net sales to decline by 10.4% to EUR 120.1m, driven by weak consumer demand and the end of Russian exports. In our estimates, Q1 operating profit is weak, totaling EUR 2.1m (1.8% margin). Weaker profitability is driven by decreased revenue and a relatively weak gross margin. 2021 full-year estimates lands to bit over the midpoint of the guidance, revenue to EUR 565.1m and EBIT to EUR 15.8m (2.8% margin). During 2023-24E, we expect Verkkokauppa.com’s topline to grow by 7.6% and 8% respectively as well as the company to reach an EBIT margin of 3.4% and 3.8% respectively.

HOLD with a target price of EUR 4.7 (6.0)
Our 22E EBIT estimate was downgraded by some 28% and 22E EPS by some 24%, and we find significant pressure to downgrade our target price after the company’s profit warning. Currently, Verkkokauppa.com trades with 22-23E P/E multiples of 20-15x while with our current target price of EUR 6.0 the corresponding multiple is 23-17x. At the same time, the company’s omnichannel peers are valued with 22-23E P/E multiples of 11-10x, indicating that the company is valued with ~70% premium over its peers. We find it difficult to accept a premium of 70%, given weak market conditions and uncertain near future. However, with a dividend yield of ~5%, it’s reasonable to stay on the company’s ride. In addition, the annual EPS growth of 24% (CAGR 2022-25) is supporting the long-run return potential. Our new target price implies 22-23E P/E multiples of 18-14x which are still quite stretched compared to peer group median. We retain our HOLD-rating and adjust our target price to EUR 4.7 (6.0).

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