FORA stock wins price target raise at Eight Capital

After meeting with management, Eight Capital analyst Adhir Kadve has raised his price target on VerticalScope Holdings (VerticalScope Holdings Stock Quote, Chart, News, Analysts, Financials TSX:FORA).

The analyst summarized where FORA is right now.

“Last week, Eight Capital had the opportunity to host VerticalScope COO & President Chris Goodridge and CFO Vincenzo Bellissimo for a day of marketing meetings,” he wrote. “With structural changes to search algorithms underpinning MAU growth and key investments into the platform driving ARPU expansion, we believe that growth momentum should continue into F24 and beyond. Further, with the Reddit IPO performing well (+75%), we continue to believe this is strong validation for online communities as a destination for advertising dollars and provides a view on new revenue streams for FORA via LLM licensing. Everything we heard and saw reinforced our thesis and we came away from the meetings incrementally positive on the name.”

In a research update to clients June 10, Kadve maintained his “Buy” rating on FORA and raised his price target on the stock from $12.50 to $15.00.

The analyst thinks the company will post Adjusted EBITDA of $28.6-million on revenue of $68.4-million in fiscal 2024. He expects those numbers will improve to Adjusted EBITDA of $30.4-million on a topline of $71.9-million in fiscal 2025.

“Our target price is based on ~9.5x F25E EV/EBITDA (was 8.0x). FORA currently trades at 7.1x, a discount to its Publishing/Digital Media peers at 8.2x and Social Media platforms at 12.7x,” Kadve added.