Quipt Home Medical will rise again, this portfolio manager says

The stock has been dropping but investors should be looking past the short-term ups and mostly downs when it comes to Quipt Home Medical (Quipt Home Medical Stock Quote, Charts, News, Analysts, Financials TSXV:QIPT), says portfolio manager Bruce Campbell of StoneCastle Investment Management. Campbell thinks the healthcare tech company’s got too much growth potential to be kept down for too long.

“They’ve been continually growing and they’ve been doing really well,” said Campbell, president of StoneCastle, who spoke on BNN Bloomberg on Friday.

Formerly Protech Home Medical, Quipt is a US-based provider of home respiratory equipment, in-home monitoring and chronic disease management services, and in recent years the company has been working on increasing its customer base across the US. Last fiscal year, which ended September 30, 2021, that customer base rose almost 54 per cent year-over-year to 140.996 unique patients served, with sales now across 19 states, up from 15 states at the end of fiscal 2021. 

Fiscal 2021 also saw Quipt complete six acquisitions and raise its revenue from $72.6 million to $102.4 million for the year, good for a 41 per cent jump, with ten per cent organic growth. The company has positive EBITDA, too, hitting $21.4 million in adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2021 compared to $15.5 million a year earlier, although its net loss was $6.2 million compared to $3.7 million in fiscal 2020. (All dollar figures in USD except where noted otherwise.)

More recently, Quipt’s third quarter fiscal 2022, ended June 30, 2022, saw its customer base climb by another 38 per cent year-over-year and revenue was up 40 per cent to $36.7 million, with Adjusted EBITDA at $7.7 million, up from $5.3 million a year earlier.

But that strong operational growth doesn’t look to be reflected in Quipt’s share price, which is down about 19 per cent over the past 12 months. Campbell says that’s more a result of today’s market, which has been hard on healthcare stocks and smaller, seemingly more volatile stocks, too.

“This is a function of, really, small cap stocks, not execution. They’ve executed phenomenally well,” he said. “They continue to grow their revenue, they continue to be profitable and they trade at about half the multiple that their larger peers do.”

“It’s just a function of size — no one wants to own these small companies right now. They think it’s too risky from a liquidity standpoint in their portfolio,” he said.

As for when QIPT might start heading north again, Campbell said it’s only a matter of time. 

“[QIPT] can stay like that for, as the saying goes, longer than you can remain solvent, but when it does happen and when it does turn the stock will do really well,” he said.

Campbell likes Quipt’s position in the US healthcare space, where respiratory care is a solid business. 

“There was some issues or concerns about funding cuts but that’s all been put to bed. The funding system in the US has said, ‘Look, with this respiration respiratory area, we’re not going to be making any funding cuts.’ And I suspect that’s because of COVID. So, they’re not going to cut back on that they’re going to try to look after all those people,” he said.

“So, it should be fairly strong for their business. Now, it’s just a function of when the market wants to reward that,” Campbell said.