Märkte & Kurse

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Original-Research: LAIQON AG - from NuWays AG

15.04.2025 / 09:00 CET/CEST
Dissemination of a Research, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS
Group.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this research. The
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Classification of NuWays AG to LAIQON AG

     Company Name:                LAIQON AG
     ISIN:                        DE000A12UP29

     Reason for the research:     Update
     Recommendation:              BUY
     from:                        15.04.2025
     Target price:                EUR 7.40
     Target price on sight of:    12 months
     Last rating change:
     Analyst:                     Henry Wendisch

FY'24 review: improved cost mix ahead of AuM scaling

To recap: Following preliminary sales and EBITDA figures of March, LAIQON's
final FY'24 results gave deeper insights into the segment performance, cost
mix and cash generation. Here's our takeaway:

Digital Wealth in full swing. Next to a strong increase in AuM (+27% yoy to
EUR 0.7bn), sales in the segment expanded by a staggering 77% yoy to EUR 3.9m
(+109% yoy in H2'24). This implies an average sales margin on AuMs of 0.65%
in FY'24 (vs. 0.42% in FY'23), showing that the EUR 150m additional AuMs
should have carried an incremental 1.14% sales margin. In our view, this
bodes extremely well for FY'25e, where a substantial part of the group's AuM
growth should stem from the Digital Wealth segment (i.e., "Wertanlage" in
cooperation with Union Investment). Furthermore, the additional sales
carried a 70% incremental EBITDA margin (FY'24 segment EBITDA; EUR -1.7m vs. EUR
-2.9m in FY'23) which also shows the strong earnings potential following
sufficient scale.

Wealth Management paints a similar picture. Similar to Digital Wealth,
Wealth Management expanded AuMs (+17% yoy) and sales (+16% yoy), which
implies a sales margin of 0.53% (vs. 0.49% in FY'23). EBITDA improved as
well (FY'24: EUR -0.3m, vs. EUR -1m in FY'23), also carrying a 70% incremental
EBITDA margin thanks to an increasing fix cost coverage.

Improved cost mix. On group level, the above mentioned development showed an
improving cost mix: Relative to sales, personnel expenses decreased by 1.6pp
yoy to 64.2% of sales, but the larger margin driver were decreasing material
expenses by 4.3pp yoy to 15% of sales due to third party services being
internalized. Mind you, that the main cost reductions regarded fix costs,
meaning that with increasing AuM and sales, profitability should expand
disproportionately.

Positive FCF in H2'24. A key highlight was the better than expected FCF
development, which came in even positive with EUR 1.7m in H2'24 (FY'24: EUR
-5.5m), only partially thanks to a positive WC swing.

In sum, the share offers an attractive entry opportunity, as with the Union
Investment cooperation in place, FY'25e is seen as the year of scaling AuMs,
which should come in with strong incremental sales and EBITDA margins, but
also positive cash generation which are all visible already. Therefore, we
reiterate our BUY recommendation with an unchanged PT of EUR 7.40, based on
DCF.

You can download the research here: http://www.more-ir.de/d/32250.pdf
For additional information visit our website:
https://www.nuways-ag.com/research-feed

Contact for questions:
NuWays AG - Equity Research
Web: www.nuways-ag.com
Email: research@nuways-ag.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nuwaysag
Adresse: Mittelweg 16-17, 20148 Hamburg, Germany
++++++++++
Diese Meldung ist keine Anlageberatung oder Aufforderung zum Abschluss
bestimmter Börsengeschäfte.
Offenlegung möglicher Interessenskonflikte nach § 85 WpHG beim oben
analysierten Unternehmen befinden sich in der vollständigen Analyse.
++++++++++

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2117760 15.04.2025 CET/CEST

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