No. of Recommendations: 3
DTB's post from May highlighted some serious concerns about Upstart's business:
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I agree that the stock price probably got way ahead of itself, but a few years ago, I think investors were very optimistic not just about share price appreciation but about the potential of this business to outperform in the lending market. When I look at revenues aver the last few years, they don't seem to justify that optimism - 2020: $229m, 2021: $801, 2022: $907m, 2023: $560m; 2024 Q1: $138m. Same thing with gross profits - 2020: $204m, 2021: $734, 2022: $665m, 2023: $398, 2024 Q1: $99. Over the same time period, the share count has gone from 17m to 85m, so the employees are doing well, but for an outside shareholder, it's hard to see how this can be called a successful business if it's unprofitable AND revenues are barely up from 3 years ago.
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The skyrocketing share count over that time period is my biggest concern, along with the share buyback program that plowed company funds into supporting the stock price while handing out so many millions of shares. Share count mentioned in the recent press release was 91.7 million, so the trend continues. Most of the growth in diluted share count occurred from 2020-2021 from 17m to 94m, then it dropped to 83m in 2022, before gradually climbing to current levels.
I'm not sure details of the massive dilution from 2020-21. Hopefully the company raised some serious cash from that as well as rewarding insiders.
I do believe in the business model and the growth opportunity. The share count climb has the potential to eat up some of the growth, but explosive growth would overwhelm that and deliver good returns. I'm planning on riding the favorable trend of dropping Fed rates and inflation for at least a little while. I may take some profits though, since I don't have full trust in management's prioritizing the common shareholder.
