Tons of upside to Carebook Technologies, says iA Capital

With a record number of contracts booked in its latest quarter, Carebook Technologies (Stock Quote, Charts, News, Analysts, Financials TSXV:CRBK) is seeing its business head in the opposite direction to its share price, which has lost about 80 per cent of its value over the past 12 months. But now is a good time for investors to give some love to Carebook, says iA Capital Markets analyst Chelsea Stellick, who reviewed the company’s second quarter results in a report to clients on Tuesday. Stellick reiterated a “Buy” rating on the stock and $0.70 per share target price, which at the time of publication represented a projected one-year return of 278.4 per cent.

Montreal-based Carebook, which provides digital health solutions under three verticals: pharmacy, virtual care and insurance, released its Q2 2022 results on Monday, featuring revenue up 105 per cent year-over-year to $2.3 million and a record $5 million in new sales booked including a milestone one with Air Canada.

“Our second quarter results continue the positive trend begun at the start of our current fiscal year as we benefit from the successful integration of our acquisitions of Wellness Checkpoint and CoreHealth,” said CEO Michael Peters in a press release. 

“Our recent announcements of major wins with tier one employers provides true validation of the success of our strategy and renewed focus on the growing employer market. Major companies across North America, like Air Canada and Metro Inc., are recognizing Carebook for the innovative and powerful digital health and wellness solutions we offer that can provide meaningful relief to the challenges faced by their clients and employees,” he said.

Also on Monday, Carebook announced a partnership with Canadian grocery and pharmacy chain Metro Inc for the provision of digital health and wellness solutions to Metro’s customers through CRBK’s CoreHealth platform.

Looking at Carebook’s second quarter results, Stellick said the $2.3 million topline was a little under her estimate of $2.5 million, while operating costs for the company continued trending downwards including sales and marketing which was down 13 per cent sequentially to $0.8 million and G&A was down 18 per cent sequentially to $1.1 million. R&D expenses rose 43 per cent sequentially, however, to $2.4 million, with the end result being an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.6 million.

“Although CRBK reported Q2 revenues slightly below our estimates, it was a record quarter in terms of total contract sales value wins which boosts ARR and supports the long-term growth trajectory,” Stellick wrote.

“Contracts included tier one employers and a significant partnership with Metro subsequent to the quarter, which will promote CRBK’s service offerings in two of Canada’s largest markets, Ontario and Quebec,” she said.

Stellick also noted that Carebook continues to get excellent feedback on its Be Well app for Rexall Pharmacy, generating a score of 4.5/5 for both iOS and Android users. On the Metro partnership, Stellick said grocery and pharmacy chains are now taking up initiatives to support the health and well-being of their customers while also benefitting from customer data. In the case of Metro, the analyst said it’s likely to be a volume-based contract for Carebook.

“The contract includes upfront fees payable to CRBK in Q3/22 and full implementation is expected by Q3/23,” Stellick wrote. “The choice of CRBK’s service offering over competitors by Metro validates the CoreHealth acquisition as a highly complementary growth driver for CRBK. Although terms were undisclosed, we estimate this contract is worth well over $1 million given Metro’s ~950 stores and ~$18 billion annual sales.”

Stellick has revised her estimates and is now calling for full-year 2022 revenue of $10.3 million compared to $5.7 million generated in 2021 and rising to $12.8 million in 2023 and $14.4 million in 2024. On adjusted EBITDA, the analyst is forecasting moves from negative $7.8 million in 2021 to negative $4.0 million in 2022 to positive $0.7 million in 2023 and then to positive $3.1 million in 2024.

On valuation, Stellick has CRBK going from an EV/Revenue multiple of 3.9x in 2021 to 2.1x in 2022 to 1.7x in 2023 to 1.5x in 2024. Her target price of $0.70 per share is derived from the average of three approaches: EV/Revenue, book value and discounted cash flow.

With a market capitalization of $14 million, Carebook began trading on the TSX Venture in October of 2020 after a reverse takeover transaction, raising $21 million in gross proceeds. The stock initially fell from around $2.25 to $1.20 by early 2021 and then started sliding again in July 2021, dropping to its current range around $0.18-$0.20 per share.