SKO - Serko.com

[Balance]

Now that the market is waking up to the true upside potential of Serko, here's another lovely little bit of information which was largely ignored by the market at the time.

https://www.nzx.com/announcements/316669

Appointment of Tony D’Astolfo - acknowledged by travel industry as one of its profile corporate movers and shakers.

Examples from travel industry publications:

The Dime : "Since recreating the self-booking and ground tech company in 2016, Deem’s leadership was unabashed about taking on Concur. It’s hard to picture Deem having the same moxie without Tony D’Astolfo, an industry celebrity who served as face of the company and chief commercial officer."

The Beat : "After seven years of slogging and blogging for Rearden Commerce, Tony D'Astolfo is hanging up his team jersey. Truly one of corporate travel's own, a huge personality in his own right, Tony brought with him a new legitimacy as well as quite a few GetThere alumni to Rearden when he joined it around the time I started The Beat."

[Balance]

https://skift.com/2018/04/23/the-ski...novators-list/

Serko identified as one of the industry's corporate travel innovators list.

Next step likely to be M&A in the sector to gain scale to take on the big boys of the industry - Concur & Amex.

Or a case of the big boys taking over the likes of Serko?

Interesting times ahead!

[hardt]

https://skift.com/2018/04/23/the-ski...novators-list/

Serko identified as one of the industry's corporate travel innovators list.

Next step likely to be M&A in the sector to gain scale to take on the big boys of the industry - Concur & Amex.

Or a case of the big boys taking over the likes of Serko?

Interesting times ahead!

CTD would make a fine parent for SKO...

https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/201802...14d39dj896.pdf - S/22

M&A Discipline

Targets must possess:
- Strong Market Reputation/Market Leader *YES/NOT YET*
- Excellent Management Team *YES*
- High Historical Client and Staff Retention *YES*

Targets must fit strategic rationale:
- Builds Scale, Geographic Footprint, Builds upon Niche *YES*
- Highly EPS Accretive *NOT YET*

DISC: shareholder in both

[Balance]

CTD would make a fine parent for SKO...

https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/201802...14d39dj896.pdf - S/22

M&A Discipline

Targets must possess:
- Strong Market Reputation/Market Leader *YES/NOT YET*
- Excellent Management Team *YES*
- High Historical Client and Staff Retention *YES*

Targets must fit strategic rationale:
- Builds Scale, Geographic Footprint, Builds upon Niche *YES*
- Highly EPS Accretive *NOT YET*

DISC: shareholder in both

Possibility.

Let's be ambitious though and wish Serko to do a Xero equivalent - grow really big and successful, rather than just be another NZ company which is gobbled up before it can realize a global potential.

Failing which, be better for Serko to be taken over by a really big boy like Concur SAP - for a really big price.

https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09...r-8-3-billion/

[Schrodinger]

Who is cutting CTD's lunch in USA?

CTD would make a fine parent for SKO...

https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/201802...14d39dj896.pdf - S/22

M&A Discipline

Targets must possess:
- Strong Market Reputation/Market Leader *YES/NOT YET*
- Excellent Management Team *YES*
- High Historical Client and Staff Retention *YES*

Targets must fit strategic rationale:
- Builds Scale, Geographic Footprint, Builds upon Niche *YES*
- Highly EPS Accretive *NOT YET*

DISC: shareholder in both

[Schrodinger]

Possibility.

Let's be ambitious though and wish Serko to do a Xero equivalent - grow really big and successful, rather than just be another NZ company which is gobbled up before it can realize a global potential.

Failing which, be better for Serko to be taken over by a really big boy like Concur SAP - for a really big price.

https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09...r-8-3-billion/

Prefer SKO to buy them out=p. CTD multiple times larger and growing slightly faster. Tells me that SKO is not firing on cylinders and its either a tech issue or management. Cant see a great difference between both offerings. SKO need to be more obvious about their space as they both pitch to the same customers. I assume they arent a direct substitute (fropm the customers perspective not their own). If this is the case then get better at telling the story. Corporate travel is an extremely complex business so simplify it.

[Balance]

Prefer SKO to buy them out=p. CTD multiple times larger and growing slightly faster. Tells me that SKO is not firing on cylinders and its either a tech issue or management. Cant see a great difference between both offerings. SKO need to be more obvious about their space as they both pitch to the same customers. I assume they arent a direct substitute (fropm the customers perspective not their own). If this is the case then get better at telling the story. Corporate travel is an extremely complex business so simplify it.

Be a very interesting question to ask Serko next week when they start their presentations to brokers and their clients.

[Schrodinger]

Im looking for a minimum 30% increase in HY/FY revenue. Profit not of interest at this stage.

Be a very interesting question to ask Serko next week when they start their presentations to brokers and their clients.

[Balance]

Good exposure through presentations for Serko in the month ahead :

"D'Astolfo joins former Amex and NuTravel exec Rich Miller, and former Concur exec Murray Warner as the newest members of the leadership team at Serko.

The new look executive line-up, along with Serko's new flagship product, Zeno, will be introduced to the industry at the upcoming ACTE Conference in New York, April 29-May 1, and the BTTB-GTBA conference in Sydney on May 8-9."

[Schrodinger]

Lifted from homepage. Clearly they arent the market leader in Australasia. and the 50% claim is misleading. Do they mean all organisations , top 200, one sector? If they are claiming superior tech then say so and show the tech. Btw CTD has $50M revenue in Australasia (edit: this may include other "non tech" divisions not enough time to check). The 20% reduction in spend is nice but is this common i.e. CTD also reduces spend by 20%??

Also not keen on the "growing globally" wording either. Maybe wait a few month till they actually get some customers. Expenses are growing globally..They will need this sorted out before they go USA as that market wont put up with it.

Assumed angle: Integrated Travel and Expense Platform. Why is this better??? Speed? Please market better get a marketing team on it. Too many features not enough benefits.

Corporate Solution

Serko is the leading online travel booking and expense management provider in Australasia, that's growing globally.

Over 50% of Australasian organisation use Serko Online as their Online Booking Tool (OBT) to help manage travel programmes and reduce the cost of business travel - by as much as 20%.