As shown in Exhibit 2, the portfolio is dominated by FinTech Group, and the technology and internet sector comprises nearly three quarters of investments by value (Exhibit 3). Management is working to diversify the portfolio, but the relative scale of the FinTech holding and recent good performances of FinTech and MagForce mean they are likely to comprise the majority of the portfolio for some time. We understand that management expects to make four or five new investments in the next 12 months and would expect Heliad to continue to sell down its stake in DEAG. Below we look at the portfolio in more detail, explaining the investment case for each holding, and explain FinTech Group in detail.
Exhibit 2: Portfolio analysis by investment
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Exhibit 3: Portfolio analysis by sector
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Source: Heliad Equity Partners data at 31 March 2017, Deutsche Börse. Note: Quoted investments prices as at 16 May 2017.
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Source: Heliad Equity Partners data as at 31 March 2017.
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Exhibit 2: Portfolio analysis by investment
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Source: Heliad Equity Partners data at 31 March 2017, Deutsche Börse. Note: Quoted investments prices as at 16 May 2017.
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Exhibit 3: Portfolio analysis by sector
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Source: Heliad Equity Partners data as at 31 March 2017.
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Detailed financial statements are not available for the unlisted constituents of the portfolio because Heliad consolidates them, either because it holds a controlling interest, or because they are held through HEP Beteiligungs, but we show basic income statement data for the listed investments in Exhibit 4 as well as the value of Heliad’s holding in each company. We would draw attention to the fact that Heliad’s listed investments have a current value of at least €66.5m (assuming that the stake in DEAG is at the lower end of the most recently reported range of 3-5%), 4% more than Heliad’s own market capitalisation of €63.7m. It may be that a discount is being applied to reflect the 2.5% annual fee and potential 20% “carry” payable to the management company and for Heliad Equity Partners’ own costs, but the discount on the listed investments seems high: Heliad’s total liabilities are only €3.8m (at 31 December 2016), giving a net value for the listed assets alone of €62.8m, which means shareholders would have access to those assets at almost exactly market value and does not seem to ascribe any value to the unlisted holdings which Heliad reports make up c 25% of portfolio value. We explain each business briefly below.
Exhibit 4: Value and recent income statement data for Heliad’s listed investments
€m |
FinTech |
MagForce |
DEAG |
MAX 21 |
bmp |
|
2015 |
2016 |
2015 |
2016 |
2015 |
2016 |
2015 |
2016 |
2015 |
2016 |
Revenue |
68.0 |
87.6 |
2.6 |
1.2 |
200.4 |
184.8 |
N/A |
0.0 |
5.7 |
15.0 |
EBITDA |
18.4 |
30.6 |
(4.4) |
(6.7) |
(25.7) |
1.8 |
N/A |
0.0 |
(1.8) |
(1.8) |
EBIT |
40.9 |
30.3 |
(4.5) |
(7) |
13.4 |
5.9 |
N/A |
0.0 |
0.8 |
(0.8) |
Net income |
(1.7) |
8.4 |
(1.5) |
(7) |
(1.7) |
8.4 |
N/A |
(6.4) |
(2.8) |
(9.6) |
EPS |
(0.11) |
0.50 |
(0.06) |
(0.27) |
(1.82) |
(0.22) |
N/A |
(0.52) |
(0.42) |
(1.38) |
Market cap |
306.0 |
|
204.6 |
|
46.8 |
|
25.7 |
|
12.7 |
Value of Heliad stake |
51.6 |
|
10.9 |
|
1.4–2.3 |
|
1.4 |
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1.2 |
Source: Bloomberg data as at 2 June 2017. Note: Bloomberg uses adjustments, which may differ from company reported accounts.
Fintech Group (16.87%, market cap c €300m)
FinTech has itself consolidated several other businesses and is now reorganising itself into a tech and a finance entity. It reports under two segments and is in the process of reorganising its divisions so that the operational structure matches the structure of its financial reporting more closely.
The securities trading and financial services division (€19.4m of revenue, €11.9m EBITDA in 2016) comprises flatex, an online broker, and ViTrade, a specialist trading platform for very active investors. flatex is the fastest-growing online broker in Europe and had net new client growth of 25,000 in 2016, bringing the total to c 175,000. It has customers in Germany and Austria and management aims for their number to exceed 200k by the end of 2017. Both businesses provide non-advice securities transactions to well-informed investors. Securities covered include all financial instruments tradeable on German exchanges as well as numerous international ones, over-the-counter (OTC) direct trading, FX and CFDs. Both operate online and have no branches, charge competitive fees (with no subscription costs and a maximum of €5.90 per trade OTC and €5.00 for exchange-traded instruments, flatex is the cheapest online broking platform available to German retail investors). Other differentiating factors include the range of trading partners (19) available to its customers and the fact that they can also use flatex to invest in time deposits or overnight money, it can also make loans to its customers. Flatex’s new and integrated trading, settlement and banking software reduce costs and make the company profitable despite its low fees. FinTech also has a mobile payments business called kesh and is winding up a second online broker called brokerport.
The transaction processing and white-label banking division (€70.8m of revenue, €28.3m EBITDA in 2016) is made up of XCOM and its fully owned subsidiary biw (Bank für Investments und Wertpapiere). These earn R&D revenues for developing financial technology for their clients, execute securities transactions and provide business process outsourcing to over 250 financial service companies and banks (notable clients include Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank, for which FinTech runs LOX, the exchange-traded products over-the-counter system with 3bn price feeds and 50,000 transactions a day). The two entities also provide services to flatex and ViTrade, including securities settlement. biw is a full-service bank in its own right and holds over €1bn in customer deposits. XCOM provides software, hosting services, complete specialised banking processes, deposits, brokerage, payment transactions, cards, loans, mobile payments and peer-to-peer transactions as well as cash logistics, ATM operation and settlement. All services and products are highly secure, while maintaining flexibility, as they are fully integrated into clients’ existing systems and easy to use. As well as established financial service providers, the clientele includes start-ups needing their own systems.
FinTech is listed in Frankfurt under the ticker FTK and recent share price performance has been good, with the shares up 28% ytd (Exhibit 5), partly driven by encouraging FY16 results published in April. FinTech has not paid any dividends to date, but Heliad has realised €7.7m of its investment. The current value of Heliad’s remaining stake is €52.7m, meaning that the cash multiple on the original investment (including realised returns), which was 2.4x at 31 December, is now likely to be c 3x because FinTech’s chares have appreciated by c 34% since. Separately, under the Scale scheme, we will be initiating on FinTech in due course, but will not be providing forecasts.
Exhibit 5: Fintech Group share price performance over the last two years
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Source: Bloomberg, data to 18 May 2017
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MagForce AG (5.34%, market cap c €200m)
MagForce is a nanotechnology company listed in Frankfurt under the ticker MF6. It has developed a medical device called NanoTherm to treat cancer. Put simply, the technology involves injecting tumours with nanoparticles, which can then be excited (heated) remotely by a NanoActivator to destroy the tumour while minimising the impact on surrounding healthy tissue. We have recently re-initiated coverage of the company and our report includes detailed forecasts. MagForce is executing its strategy to drive uptake and acceptance (in the US and Europe) of NanoTherm. In Germany, MagForce has six centres (three utilised, c 50 patients to date) commercially capable of treating glioblastoma (GBM) patients. To accelerate uptake of NanoTherm treatment in Europe, we expect MagForce to look to expand from Germany into other countries over six to 18 months. In the US, its subsidiary MagForce USA is in talks with the FDA to initiate a planned clinical trial in prostate cancer patients (potential launch in 2018). Data are expected in 2018 (potential launch soon after).
Again, recent positive newsflow has helped the share price (up 73% in 2017) and the successful execution of management’s strategy could be expected to see further gains. Please see our initiation note for a more detailed outlook and explanation of sensitivities.
Exhibit 6: MagForce share price performance over the last two years
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Source: Bloomberg, data to 18 May 2017
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Deutsche Entertainment (3-5%, market cap c €50m)
Deutsche Entertainment (DEAG) has been listed in Frankfurt under the ticker ERMK since 1998 and was founded in 1978. It operates in the entertainment industry, organising concerts, Christmas fairs and other events in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the UK, promoting recorded music and selling tickets to other events. It hosts around 2,000 events per year and sells c 5m tickets. It has exited an unprofitable festival business, which led to a loss of €26.2m in 2016 (previously reported at €17.8m). DEAG has 10 subsidiaries operating in the live touring industry including ACT Artist Agency in Germany (currently running a tour of Germany by Riverdance), KBK (running the 2017 German tours for Status Quo, Alice Cooper and Chris De Burgh) and Raymond Gubbay (specialising in ballet, opera and classical music events and with strong links to the Royal Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall). The entertainment services division includes myticket.de, a ticketing website, Verescon, which designs sets and entertainment spaces, Handwerker Promotion (which promotes rock music events) and 13 other subsidiaries.
Heliad has recently been selling down its position in DEAG because the cash multiple has been in the target zone of three to five times the original investment and the shares have been in the portfolio for longer than the usual holding period. We believe that Heliad did not participate in DEAG’s recent €2m capital increase which will allow it to invest in a UK ticketing business.
MAX 21 (5.27%, market cap c €25m)
MAX 21 has been listed in Frankfurt since 2006 under the ticker MA1. It holds positions in mail management, IT security and cloud services. Its holdings include Binect, KeyIdentity, Necdis and GFN. All are at early stages of development and MAX 21 does not expect to report a profit in 2017, although revenues are projected to be over €10m and the FY16 consolidated loss of €6.4m is expected to be substantially reduced.
bmp Holding (9.09%, market cap c €13m)
In May 2017 Heliad invested €930k to acquire its stake in bmp Holding, an e-commerce company listed in Frankfurt and Warsaw (BTBA and BMPAG). bmp has three subsidiaries, which sell sleep products such as beds and mattresses online: sleepz, Matratzen Union Gruppe and Grafenfels. Heliad and bmp are exploring the extent to which Bettenriese could be incorporated in bmp. It is expected that the fragmented sleep product industry may well see consolidation in future, and that e-commerce will take market share from bricks-and-mortar retailers. Heliad aims for its sleep investments to emulate Eve, a successful UK company.
bmp was previously a venture capital company and its management decided in Q215 to sell the VC portfolio by the end of 2017 to concentrate on the sleep sector. The company recorded significant losses on its VC portfolio, due to one particular investment going into insolvency and write-downs on a number of others. These led to a capital reduction and restricted bmp’s ability to fund the marketing efforts of sleepz and Grafenfels, which had an impact on their revenues in 2016. The subsequent capital increase, fully subscribed by Heliad, will allow a greater marketing effort and the potential for future acquisitions through share issuance.
Cubitabo operates the online sleep product sites BettenRiese.de and buddysleep.de. The latter sells the company’s own-brand mattresses and both are aimed at design-oriented customers. The German mattress market is reported to be growing rapidly and Cubitabo aims to increase its market share. There may be scope for it to be combined with bmp Holding.
Stapp helps celebrities to monetise their social media presence by developing individual apps that connect to major social media. It has collaborated with German reality television stars to create apps allowing their fans to try out their “looks” and purchase the relevant products. Product providers can enter co-operation agreements to place products directly.
Alphapet is Germany’s leading online retailer of premium pet foods. It was formed in 2016 through the merger of ePetWorld and Pets Premium ad operates three specialist online shops. Its branded products are now available over the counter in more than 100 specialist shops too.
Springlane is a leading retailer of kitchenware, winning an award for being the best online shop in Germany in 2016. The company was founded in 2012 with seed capital from Heliad, among others, and has conducted further rounds since, the last being €11m in 2014. It has a strong business intelligence and content marketing system to help grow sales and has recently reached several milestones in terms of online traffic: the July 2016 issue of its magazine had over one million downloads and on 30 December the website exceeded 100,000 hits in a day. It regularly has nearly 10 million pins on Pinterest per day.
Tiani Spirit specialises in the standardised and secure exchange of data, and of healthcare information in particular. It has 17 partners, including Cisco Systems, Virgin Media, Swiss Post and Austrian Health. Its technology enables Cisco’s Medical Data Exchange Solution (MDES), to connect previously incompatible systems from multiple institutions, allowing them to share data quickly, accurately and securely.
My Better Life runs an online life coaching service through which users have access to advice from eight experts in various areas of everyday life. Advice is tailored to individuals’ needs and is scientifically based. The company also offers corporate services to help improve employee motivation, reduce stress, improve leadership and contribute to a happier workforce.
Libify Technologies (8.12%)
Libify makes and sells portable emergency call and location systems designed for use by outdoor sport enthusiasts, the elderly and unwell Its devices can all send an alert signal and location, either to a pre-arranged telephone number or the emergency services. It also produces tracking devices for animals such as dogs and horses that may stray. Its devices are on sale in 18 countries and have been used successfully in Germany, Austria and Switzerland over 20,000 times.
Muume is a private Swiss company whose technology allows consumers to make purchases and place orders at multiple retailers using a single app on their smartphone. It links shopping applications to bank and payment services and provides added value to consumers via coupon and loyalty programmes. The company is working to attract closed-user groups, which should make it attractive to merchants, and to sign more merchants up to its network.