Insiders are buying up shares of BBTV

The market may have yet to catch onto BBTV Holdings (BBTV Holdings Stock Quote, Chart, News TSX:BBTV) but company insiders seem to think the stock is at a good price, as there’s been a cluster of recent insider buying.

Vancouver-based media and technology company BBTV launched as a public company a in October at $16.00 per share for gross proceeds of about $172 million, a huge milestone for the company but one which seemingly hasn’t caught on with investors just yet as the stock has been trading mostly around the $12-$13 range since.

That appears to have put it in bargain territory, at least if moves by CEO Shahrzad Rafati and Lead Independent Director Hamed Shahbazi are to be believed. Since November 1 Rafati has bought about $18,900 worth of BBTV shares while Shahbazi has bought about $263,000 of BBTV, with insider buying often taken as a signal that company execs and directors see a stock as undervalued.

BBTV’s current market capitalization of just over $240-million amounts to a little more than half of one times sales for 2020, using Canaccord Genuity’s recent prediction of $437.4-million in revenue for the company.

Shahbazi, better known to Cantech Letter readers as the CEO of WELL Health Technologies, has been a persistent buyer of the stock since the IPO, adding to his position in November and December through an investment holding company called Impactreneur Capital Corp. His holdings now total 2,127,849 or approximately 10 per cent of all issued and outstanding shares of BBTV.

BBTV Holdings started out 15 years ago when BroadbandTV began offering video content management services to content providers for platforms like YouTube and has since then grown into an end-to-end management, distribution and monetization business with a growing list of content providers and a multi-channel network on YouTube, now comprising the second-largest source (next to Google) of online video content globally at 245 billion views over the first half of 2020.

Rafati, whose BBTV bought back 51 per cent of BroadbandTV from European media company RTL through funds gained in the IPO, says the company’s mission is about democratization of online content via enabling creators to profit from their work.

“We want to be the linchpin at the centre of it all, to really advance online video while helping content owners and creators become more successful through better distribution and better monetization,” said Rafati in an October interview with Cantech Letter.

“I’m personally invested in our IPO because I greatly believe in our future as a public company. Content is a powerful educator, an entertainer and an agent for change, and BBTV is playing a key role in this large and fast-growing industry,” Rafati said.

Since its debut, BBTV has received Buy signals from a number of analysts. Scotiabank’s Jeff Fan initiated coverage on November 17 with a “Sector Outperform” rating and one-year target price of $19.00, saying BBTV is poised for growth now that it has taken back full control of BroadbandTV. Fan pointed to the higher-margin potential of the company’s Plus Solutions offering for content creators as the company’s expected growth area.

“As an independent company free from a media conglomerate, coupled with additional capital from the IPO and a public currency, we believe BBTV can actively leverage the strong market position of its Base Solutions business to drive Plus Solutions’ higher-margin growth over the next few years, which will create significant potential shareholder value,” Fan wrote in his report.

At Canaccord Genuity, Aravinda Galappatthige began his coverage also on November 17 with a “Buy” on BBTV and a $24.00 target, saying the market for video content is still growing by leaps and bounds. Galappatthige pointed to Google which this year released YouTube-specific financials saying it paid out US$8.5 billion in YouTube content costs in 2019, a large portion of which went to independent content creators. And Google has predicted ad revenues on YouTube will keep growing, projecting a 19-per-cent CAGR through to 2024.

“In our view, in addition to the current size of the market and underlying increase in creators, the growing quality, volume of production and monetization opportunities of these content creators makes this a compelling industry,” Galappatthige wrote in his coverage launch.

“Our expectations for BBTV reflect continued double-digit revenue growth but a U-shaped trajectory in terms of profitability. We see 2021 as very much a year of investment, during which the company focuses on building a stronger platform to reaccelerate the growth in Plus solutions,” he said.

Eight Capital’s Kevin Krisharatne also started off BBTV with a “Buy” rating in a November 24 report, along with a $22.50 target price. Krishnaratne said BroadbandTV is effectively without direct peers in its industry, which is clear from the company’s 95-per-cent retention rates for all content owners over the past 12 months.

“While the scale of BroadbandTV’s library of licensed and owned content positions it well against traditional Media players, it is much more differentiated given its leveraging of Technology to efficiently acquire content, ensure brand safety and accelerate advertising revenue for its clients,” Krishnaratne said. “We also see opportunities for its Technology platform to deliver SaaS and Mobile Gaming revenue to create value for many players in the Media Tech ecosystem, including Content Owners, Brands and Social Networks/Video Platforms.”

BBTV last reported earnings in early November where its third quarter featured revenue up 31 per cent year-over-year to $120.7 million and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $722,000.

Disclosure: Cantech Letter’s Nick Waddell owns shares of BBTV.