Hello friends! I confess, when I started this website I was a little pickier. (Is that a word?) Maybe more selective would be better English. Anyway, I didn't like to see any irregularities from perfect revenue growth, perfect free cash flow growth and a perfect balance sheet. Now BLTI which we just posted is close to perfection...as are many on the list. I just want to lighten up a little and give you some ideas that are CLOSE to perfect. If they appreciate in price, the money will be just as green. aQuantive (AQNT) is one of these. AQNT is having a nice day today; trading, as I write, at $13.34 up $1.26 on the day or 10.43%.
According to money.cnn.com, AQNT "...provides technology-based Internet advertising services to businesses, integrating Internet media planning and buying, management technology, user profiling & analysis systems."
AQNT, alas another dot.com is doing great financially! On July 23, 2003, AQNT announced their second quarter results for the period ended June 30, 2003. Revenue for the quarter increased 71% to $52.0 million from $30.4 million in the same quarter last year. Gross profits increased 74% to $14.5 million from $8.4 million last year. Net income for 2003 was $2.4 million or $.04/basic share (is this not fully diluted?), compared to a net LOSS of ($1.8) million or ($.03)/share.
Morningstar revenue growth is the irregular finding: revenue grew quickly from $600,000 in 1998, to $69.7 million in 1999, then to $194.7 million in 2000, the shrunk to $89.6 million in 2001, increased to $132.7 million in 2002, and $156 million in the trailing twelve months. Extrapolating the current quarter's $52 million would get us over $200 million for this year.
So somehow, I have not researched this part, they dropped in revenue in 2000 to 2001, but they appear to be back on track the past 3 years.
Earnings/share, which was at a loss of ($.70) in 2001, is now profitable. They were burning cash in 2000 with ($29) million in free cash flow, this improved to ($15) million in 2001, and then positive cash flow of $10 million in 2002, and $13 million in trailing twelve months.
The balance sheet, as reported on Morningstar.com, also looks quite nice. They have $121.4 million in cash and $32.0 million in other current assets. This is balanced against $47.5 million in current liabilities and NO long-term debt. This is quite healthy in my humble opinion.
The market cap is $775.2 million. The trailing p/e is astronomic at 151.0, but the company is just turning profitable and this should drop quickly. The forward p/e (for 2004) is only 34.51. The PEG ratio also shows a reasonable price for this issue with a PEG of 1.57. Price/sales a little rich at 4.04. Currently there are 59.63 million shares outstanding and 43.90 million of them float. No dividend is paid. This last data is all from Yahoo.com. As of 9/8/03, there are 2.58 million shares out short, quite significant, representing 3.728 days of average trading volume to cover.
I do not own any shares of this issue and frankly have never even HEARD of it before this morning....but it looks GREAT to me. Heck with the blip in the revenue, this company has superb revenue growth, nice earnings growth, positive and growing free cash flow, what is there NOT to like....now if I just had a little money to invest in this stock!
Regards to all of my friends and visitors!
Bob