Water Intelligence LON:WATR is a little known, but high quality business trading under the banner of American Leak Detection (ALD) in the US. Listed on the UK’s AIM market, this small cap is the leading North American provider of minimally-invasive leak detection solutions, allowing for non-destructive remediation of residential and commercial water faults. Earlier this week (7th February), Water Intelligence provided an encouraging trading update for results in 2022. We take a closer look below.
Whether the economic environment is good or bad, property owners will seek to fix a destructive leak quickly, and for the most part be insensitive to prices, given the emergency nature of Water Intelligence’s call outs. With revenues of USD71.3m, up by 31% last year, 2022 has proved no exception to this rule for the company, as a tailwind of strong demand for its services, combined with some bolt-on acquisitions during the year supported strong total growth for the business. In terms of profitability, the group delivered 20% growth in adjusted EBITDA to USD12.3m and adjusted profit before tax grew 12% to USD7.8m.
Franchise operations
American Leak Detection, the group’s core business, operates predominantly as a franchise business across North America, however Water Intelligence owns a select number of ALD operations that contribute to the group P&L.
This centrally-owned revenue stream has been a large focus for the company in recent years as the priority has shifted to re-acquiring attractive ALD franchises, and rolling them into the core group. Accounting for over 60% of group revenue, Water Intelligence’s owned ALD operations grew revenues by 48% in 2022, or by 25% on a same provider basis – two acquisitions accounted for a significant portion of growth in the segment.
Looking at the overall network sales, which records sales for both Water Intelligence’s operations and ALD franchisees, this revenue figure was up by 10.5% to USD168m from USD152m the year prior. Whilst this level of growth will keep franchisees on-board, it is also positive to see the outperformance of the centrally owned operations with ongoing growth rates of 25%.
International progress
The group currently has a multinational presence through its UK-based Water Intelligence International (WII) subsidiary, to which the group is in the early stages of expanding. WII focuses largely on public sector solutions whilst also maintaining residential and commercial offerings.
In 2021, WII expanded its addressable market by re-acquiring franchisee operations in Australia and in Canada. In 2022, revenues from the company’s international arm grew a modest 9% to USD6.7m.
Patrick DeSouza, the company’s executive chairman said in a statement: “As we head into 2023, we are positioned to better meet growing market demand with scalable operations and an ability to provide our customers with added solutions for their water and wastewater problems. With increasingly adverse climate conditions – whether droughts, freezes or flooding – our customers need us more than ever.”
Long-term strategy
2022 has provided another strong result for the company, alongside more than a decade run of compelling performance, driving shareholder returns to date to over 700% since listing in 2010.
The company is clearly exposed to significant long term tailwinds with water scarcity and environmental factors at play, but also has a very ALD franchises. Given the company already has a high degree of visibility into franchisee operations, such bolt-ons make a great, low-risk fit for the parent group.
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During the full year update, the company showed this strategy is still on full display, as they announced the re-acquiring of the Nashville, Tennessee franchise. The acquisition cost the company USD3.25m compared to USD2.4m in Nashville revenue and USD550,000 in profit before tax, valuing the bolt-on at roughly 6x PBT. Considering the parent company is currently valued at a multiple of 14x PBT, one can see how these bolt-ons are highly likely to create shareholder value.
Not only are these bolt-ons very good value, but there is also a significant runway ahead for the company in terms of re-acquiring such opportunities, as the graph below will show that currently only less than 30% of ALD total network revenues are attributable to the parent company. Also of note, total network sales have also grown by 68% from 2018, as the parent company has added franchise territories, recruited technicians and expanded the sales force. This shows Water Intelligence has not only taken a larger share of the market, it has done well to expand it too.
Source: Company Annual Reports
DeSouza said: “….by selectively converting ALD franchises to corporate-operated locations. Such re-acquisitions of franchisee operations enable some amount of the approximately USD100m in highly profitable franchisee sales to end-users, currently recorded as royalty income, to be converted to the group’s direct P&L”
Sustainable demand
Water Intelligence delivered another set of strong results in 2022, underpinned by strong demand from customers and through thoughtful M&A of its existing franchisee operations. With a market capitalisation of just over GBP100m, the business isn’t well known to UK investors, however, with a strong track record of growth, a balance sheet with net cash and a founding shareholder owning 29% of the equity, it should certainly be on the watchlist of those looking for quality growth companies.The shares are now down 55% from heights seen in 2022, which has brought the valuation of this small business back to reality. At approximately 24x forecast earnings in 2023, the shares are worth buying. The company opened trading on 9th February at 580p, and has offered a year-to-date return of -11.1%, a one-year return of -38.8% with its shares ranging between 550p to 960p over a 52-week period.
