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SiteMinder surges 20pc as profit is in sight
Tess BennettTechnology reporter
Jul 28, 2023 – 4.22pm
KEY POINTS

• Hotel booking firm SiteMinder was the last major ASX tech IPO, listing in late 2021.
• The loss-making technology company was heavily sold off in 2022.
• Investors have rewarded SiteMinder’s plan to become profitable.

Shares in hotel booking software company SiteMinder rose more than 20 per cent on Friday after the company said it expected to be profitable in the second half of this financial year, following strong revenue growth and a cut in spending.

The unaudited results showed SiteMinder’s revenue increased 30.5 per cent to $151.4 million for FY23, and the number of properties using its software jumped 13 per cent to 39,100.


SiteMinder chief executive Sankar Narayan says the software company is on the path to profitability. Dominic Lorrimer

SiteMinder chief executive Sankar Narayan said the firm had strengthened its sales and marketing efforts, and had benefited from the “normalisation” of hotel bookings around the globe following the pandemic.

“The combination of these factors have resulted in additions to our global customer base being almost double what they were in the same period last year,” Mr Narayan said.
“This growth, along with our cost reduction program, has put the business firmly on the path to become profitable in H2 FY24.”

SiteMinder reaffirmed guidance that it expected its underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) to be profitable and underlying free cash flow positive in the second half of FY24.


The $1 billion business was founded in 2006 by friends Mike Ford and Mike Rogers, when they realised there was no way for hotels to exchange booking information with the websites they listed their rooms on.

The company went public in 2021, raising $627 million at a $1.36 billion market capitalisation, but its shares were heavily sold off last year as investors abandoned loss-making technology companies.
With an IPO price of $5.06 per share, SiteMinder climbed as high as $7.77 before dropping to $2.61 in June last year. On Friday, its share price had recovered to $4.29.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Wei Weng-Chen described the trading update and guidance as “overall a solid result” with most disclosed items either meeting or slightly beating consensus.

After reporting a first-half net loss of $25.5 million, the company said underlying cash burn in the fourth quarter was $5.3 million, 12.5 per cent of revenue, following a cost-cutting program that was announced on January 31.

Subscription revenue rose 19 per cent to $103 million and transaction revenues were up 66 per cent to $48.4 million for the full financial year.

SiteMinder also generated cash from the proceeds of the sale of the company’s stake in tour booking software company Rezdy, which was acquired by a US private equity firm in a deal understood to be worth more than $100 million.

SiteMinder ended the financial year with $51.3 million of cash and cash equivalents and $2.1 million in term deposits, and an undrawn debt facility of $30.2 million.

In July, SiteMinder signed a new $20 million debt facility with HSBC, which is undrawn, to replace the facility previously provided by Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in March, forcing US regulators to step in to guarantee deposits and debt facilities.

The company recently appointed former Xero managing director Trent Innes as its chief growth officer. Former Apple executive Tim Howard joined the company as chief financial officer in January.