I agree - it is up to shareholders to assess all information and judge it's worth.
And, until early last year, I would have agreed on the list of issues which attract you to Catapult.
I do agree they have the biggest exposure - and shareholders would like to think they will build on that - but also it may be that others can eat into that with improved products. As for not needing to list clients - you are right, they don't need to - but it does show who has the big names or not! Apart from that, as Catapult claims to win 80-90% of all contests it could be a way of showing how well the company is going, especially if, as they claim, 88% of the market is still available. The competitors all know which company has which clients - so it's only the shareholders who do not!
As for CAT having a strong balance sheet - well I would question that that is a strength in a company which loses shareholders funds in increasing amounts every year - especially if burn rates in FY 2019 / 20 require further shareholders funding as it has so far consumed well over $100m of its shareholder funds in it's listed existence. I would also suggest you should look at the increasing proportion of PlayerTEK sales [and at the published price points] - most of which are likely lower margin sales than S5 or T6 and some of which are one-off capital sales. We know PLAYR is still a drain on resources, XOS has a predominantly US-centric client base [ and strong video competitors in European markets], Clearsky & Vision have had few announcements in recent times and Vector is yet to be released & to prove itself, which with Spring release, won't be in this FY.
As for your two points on leading product dev & best products & service - I would also have agreed until recently - but not now. Statsports APEX system has virtually all the features that Catapult's new Vector system is claiming it will have. It is replacing S5 & I assume T6 - with Playertek IP & UWB [ LPS ] IP assumedly based on Clearsky IP. The clients using Statsports Apex systems and the new release software analytics - seem to think Statsports accuracy & reliability are currently the best available [hence their wins of the bigger clients of late] and that the service levels are actually not a Catapult strong point. And Statsports next-gen APEX Pro has now hit the markets before Vector is released to selected beta sites - in Spring. Also, I am not a fan of one company building what it sees as the whole stack to dominate the sports data markets without having won the elite team markets from which to leverage. Apart from consuming substantial capital before the company is profitable, most elite teams have proprietary and third-party solutions for many specialist requirements, requiring the stack to have the best components at all stages of analysis [or requiring Catapult data to be API linked to non-Catapult products] which may cause an issue with some of the new products now winning markets overseas!
I also have had a retake on what appeared weak competitors - especially, but not only, Statsports - who are profitable, have substantial capital and are obviously making an assault on Catapult's markets, and opening a regional HQ in Australia, having recently won the FFA contract. Companies do not win clients such as US Soccer, Brazil FA, China FA, FFA and most big name Associations & elite level teams in soccer and rugby on price. These major brand names & National Associations do not go with inferior data products to create the massive player performance databases, so the new APEX data & analytics is obviously of sufficient quality to attract these major brand names. In addition, there are other Sports Analytics groups, in tracking, video, specific biomedical analytics, etc, gaining ground in US & EU markets, some of which have substantial capital backing.
As for being a takeover target - I really doubt it - certainly at current capitalisation levels, with substantial ongoing losses, and IP that is probably no longer considered by the top end as "best in show". Catapult certainly had first adopter advantage, and that is clearly gone, so If the big boys with capital wanted it, I believe they would have moved by now [had plenty of chances] - and the smaller players in the field probably prefer to remain focussed on building quality product without the issues that could / would come with a [~$A 220m] listed company. Those likely to challenge these markets - eg Google / Ms / etc are yet to make any play - but it would surprise me if they would find either Catapult or Statsports of any interest.
CAT Price at posting:
$1.24 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)