It's with a heavy heart that I declare I am now out.
The Financial Report for FY21, the interview below with Eleanor Meireles and the lack of a company update on Rent Pay, in the round, have forced my hand.
Rationale
-Rent.com now has $43m in accumulated losses
-$3m in full year revenue is so small and included $567k from R&D grants & job keeper
-$1.6m of expenditure in FY21 was capitalised to the balance sheet "intangible assets" - Begs the question, is the core Rent.com business really washing its face?
-Renter resumes now stand at 1.14m which is phenomenal, but they don't monetise them. Rent Connect, Rent Bond and Score Builder are all interesting add-ons but they don't move the dial.
-Greg Bader mentioned in the interview that Rent Pay had generated $1m in flow through payments during the month. Based on my estimates, this equates to approximately 450-500 users on a full month basis using the App and is a little underwhelming. I acknowledge they have only just switched it on and haven't marketed Rent Pay yet, but if Rent Pay was that disruptive and solving a real, not perceived problem, I would expect the uptake would be much greater just via word of mouth.
-The comparison Greg makes to Netflix, Uber Eats and Airbnb is noble but lacks credibility. Netflix has 11.2m Google Play App reviews, Uber Eats 4.0m reviews, Airbnb 1.1m reviews and Rent Pay 33 reviews...yes 33! I know is early days but the lack of traction is concerning.
-I just can't see them getting to 200k Rent Pay users or the Raas target of 120k users by June 2023. What's the reason to believe?
-I'm also not convinced they can achieve a ARPU of $8mth based on their inability to monetise their other products - track record.
-The Board lacks listed company and capital market experience and they have let shareholders down, and should all go.
-I like Greg and he is the sole reason Bevan Slattery invested in Rent, but I want to see a little less of Che Guevara and a bit more of the hard nosed and commercially focussed CEO, who puts shareholders first, not renters.
I have been in since the IPO and its now time to move on. Whilst I don't feel its overvalued at ~$0.10 with a MktCap of ~$39m, I now realise its going to take a lot more patient capital to achieve their ambition and there are higher quality stocks deserving of my hard earned cash.
I really hope I'm wrong and they hit it out of the park. I will continue to follow the stock and I will be willing to buy back in, if they can demonstrate real traction with Rent Pay.
Best of luck holders
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