Model it for the last few years (quarter by quarter) from both revenue and cash flow perspective.
There have been brief periods when I thought one or the other was trending up as well...
Simply looking at the historical series of quarterly receipts (or semi-annual revenues, for that matter) can be misleading, unless things are put into a modicum of context.
If you look at the chart below, it is easy to see that AER’s historical cash flows have been distorted by two main events: 1) the discontinuation of the contract with the Brisbane City Council (which alone represented over a third of the Company’s FY2016 Revenue) in 1Q2017, and 2) a build-up of receivables in 2Q2019, which was then unwound over the following two quarters.
Once one has adjusted for those two distortions, the underlying trend has been a fairly smooth increase in receipts from customers from ~250k$/quarter in 4Q2015 to ~750k$/quarter (expected) in 4Q2021; that is a very healthy +20.1% CAGR over a 6-year period.
Similarly, if one looks at the trend in annual Revenue, the increase from ~1.0m$ in FY2015 to ~2.5m$ in FY2022 (expected) represents a +14.5% CAGR over a 7-year period. Note that I am only counting in Revenue from Customers, i.e. any Other Income (R&D rebates, etc.) has been excluded.
Also, the FY2021E and FY2022E Revenue figures have been estimated purely based on existing and recently announced contracts, i.e. they do not factor in any additional new business.
Hope this provides a more complete picture of AER’s growth over the years.
Cheers
