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2021-10-21

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UiPath: Buy For The Near Term, Hold For The Long Term

Summary UiPath should deliver alpha over the near term thanks to its leadership position in the RPA

UiPath: Buy For The Near Term, Hold For The Long Term

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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":853934946,"tweetId":"853934946","gmtCreate":1634754288731,"gmtModify":1634754288978,"author":{"id":3580277311276665,"authorId":3580277311276665,"authorIdStr":"3580277311276665","name":"BUBPLE","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/2483656f43bb2df3be071402cfac321d","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":7,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Nice</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Nice</body></html>","text":"Nice","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/853934946","repostId":1120786064,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1120786064","pubTimestamp":1634612546,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1120786064?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-10-19 11:02","market":"us","language":"en","title":"UiPath: Buy For The Near Term, Hold For The Long Term","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1120786064","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"Summary\n\nUiPath should deliver alpha over the near term thanks to its leadership position in the RPA","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>UiPath should deliver alpha over the near term thanks to its leadership position in the RPA space. RPA space should see elevated demand from labor issues.</li>\n <li>Annual ramping of contracts should boost UiPath ARR which should in turn reflect positively in its price-action.</li>\n <li>Long-term is much less clear with high absolute and fair relative valuation combined with material execution risk.</li>\n</ul>\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/dee1fdf98ac633e790ad107e02096867\" tg-width=\"1536\" tg-height=\"864\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">piranka/E+ via Getty Images\nInvestment Thesis\nUiPath(NYSE:PATH)&nbsp;is the leader of the robotic process automation (RPA) space. RPA will see increased demand in the current high-growth macro environment with labor shortage issues. UiPath is best positioned to capitalize on the opportunity.\nThe company is switching its focus to annual ramping which will benefit it operationally with happier customers and higher margins and inflate what matters most for investors, its annual recurring revenue (ARR).\nDespite my bullishness over the short term, I’m less confident over the long. I see execution risks primarily arising from cloud transition and competitive threats. The relatively fair, but absolutely high valuation opens the door to sub-par price performance over the long term.\nI recommend buying UiPath and monitoring noted issues. In the current picture, I recommend selling UiPath after increased demand from the macro catalysts is factored into the price.\nGreat Macro Backdrop for RPA Demand\nDemand for RPA will increase over the coming years. The backbone of my macro thesis is sticky wage inflation. There is strong labor demand with many firms downsizing during the pandemic and now all trying to re-grow their workforce in tandem. The private sector is trying to accommodate the strong pent-up demand following the pandemic. The reopening demand is further fueled by unprecedented government stimulus boosting incomes. Labor supply, however, is shrinking, both over the near term with increased incomes and structurally with many forced into early retirement and others taking a sabbatical from work who are evaluating life priorities. The shortage of labor supply and rising labor demand will cause wage inflation. Rising labor costs will catalyze investments that increase labor efficiency to protect margins; labor efficiency is th&nbsp;ekey value proposition of RPA.\nThe demand for RPA was already very high. RPA was the fastest-growing enterprise software segment in 2020 for the third year&nbsp;in a row&nbsp;according to&nbsp;Gartner. The market research company&nbsp;expects&nbsp;the excellent performance to continue with double-digit growth rates through 2024. Bear in mind that the high labor demand with the reopening picture was unclear at the time of these reports (latest released May 2021) as was the wage inflation and short labor supply. I believe that RPA adoption rates will be even higher than the high expectations due to the favorable macro-backdrop.\nCorporate investments into RPA should be further catalyzed by strong economic growth and low interest rates. These are also central pillars of my reopening macro-view. Technical stagflation is top-of-mind, but the environment is ripe for corporate investment practically. GDP growth may be technically decelerating but is still very high; interest rates and inflation may be climbing, and I expect them to climb further, but are still very low. The strong economy and low rates will increase corporate investment spend, RPA vendors will be key beneficiaries.\nBusiness consulting firms’ RPA focus is both evidence of industry experts’ confidence in the upcoming RPA demand as well as a catalyzer to industry growth. Major professional services firms are pushing their RPA services including&nbsp;Accenture(NYSE:ACN),Deloitte,E&amp;Y,PwC,Cognizant(NASDAQ:CTSH),CGI(NYSE:GIB),Tata Consulting(TCS),Infosys(NYSE:INFY),Genpact(NYSE:G)&nbsp;along with many others. People in the know are investing in RPA as well as investing to grow RPA.\nAs the Leading RPA Vendor, UiPath has a Bright Near-Medium Term Outlook\nUiPath is the undisputed leader in the RPA space. Gartner produces a&nbsp;Magic Quadrant&nbsp;for the industry (chart below) which compares market players in their ability to execute and on their vision. UiPath is above the rest with best-in-class execution ability with a complete vision. UiPath’s domination is obvious; this is its third consecutive year in the leader chair. The Forrester Wave, another trusted technology services research firm,places&nbsp;UiPath in the pole position on its matrix which compares current offerings, strategy, and market presence. UiPath’s leadership is reflected in its market share; UiPath has a 29%&nbsp;market share&nbsp;of the RPA space, more than double its nearest competitor. UiPath is dominating the secular growth enterprise software segment that is RPA.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/53eae62a5495303c0d14baf4748d3ef0\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"718\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/0401f457f330522fdcea2beed7b2efd4\" tg-width=\"567\" tg-height=\"619\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Source: The Forrester Wave as displayed on SmartBridge\nAs the spending towards RPA grows so will UiPath’s revenue. As both the technical and market share leader it should see a very large percentage of the growing RPA spend. UiPath is among the best positioned to capitalize on the macroeconomic and corporate spending dynamics of the coming months.\nARR is Important and ARR will Get a Boost\nThe recent&nbsp;earnings call&nbsp;was very informative on UiPath’s ARR strategy. The company will be focusing on annual contracts instead of long-term ones. Usually, I wouldn’t be fond of this move as it means lower revenue visibility despite the pricing advantages of short-duration contracts. But in this case, I think that it’s the right thing to do. Annual contracts drive higher ROI for UiPath customers; according to management, customers make better use of UiPath when they get as much as they need instead of front-loading robots to take advantage of better prices through discounts. This is financially favorable for UiPath as well since long-term contracts tend to include price discounts; decreasing contract duration will result in fewer discounts and higher margins for UiPath.\nAnnual recurring revenue is critical for any service that offers subscriptions. This is due to the resiliency of recurring revenues; contracts are near-impossible and subscriptions are difficult to cancel in a downturn. Moreover, subscription software products have a learning curve and are difficult to churn from. Subscription revenues are highly visible and are highly valued by the market evident in the commonness of nosebleed valuations in the SaaS space. ARR will be key to watch for UiPath as self-described as their “most important metric”.\nThe switch to shorter-duration contracts will inflate ARR at the cost of revenue volatility.ASC 606&nbsp;mandates that a percentage of revenue be recognized immediately and the rest amortized for long-term contracts. This artificially increases front-period revenues. UiPath focusing on annual ramping as opposed to long-term deals will reduce near-term revenues. However, ARR will increase as yearly amounts will increase due to lower discounts. I believe that higher ARR is what the market values and that this switch will benefit UiPath in market sentiment as well as operationally.\nTake Advantage of the Current Decline\nUiPath shares declined dramatically in September to deeply below IPO levels. The drawdown is even more surprising given the excellent results the company announced which was met with an immediate ~10% fall.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9c743698f0cef665c83ca663349c5dc9\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"392\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Source: TradingView\nI see two main reasons for the falling-knife-like price action in the face of excellent operating performance: weak guidance and early investors leaving the train.\nUiPath announced results that beat across the board. UiPath delivered a top-line beat of $195.5 mn in revenue vs. the consensus estimate of $186.5 coupled with an ARR growth of 60% YoY vs. 55% consensus expectations. The company delivered operating profits vs. expectations of deep losses along with almost $30 mn narrower than expected FCF burn. So why didn’t the market like the results? My guess is high expectations. I think that the guidance was low looking further into the&nbsp;release&nbsp;and&nbsp;prior releases. UiPath beat its ARR guidance this quarter by a whopping $23.5 mn ($726.5 mn vs. at the mid-point of $702 mn - $704 mn guidance range). However, full-year guidance was only increased by $26 mn (at the mid-point, the range increased from $850 mn - $855 mn to $876 mn - $881 mn). What the market is reading here is that the demand environment seems to be slowing in the second half of the year and that the growth may decelerate from here out.\nI disagree with the market. I think that the management is sandbagging the guidance and leaving itself room to overdeliver. I highly doubt that the demand for its products will decrease in this environment but only accelerate and the set-up for alpha is great over the near term.\nA lot of early investors cashed out further pushing down the price. UiPath’s IPO&nbsp;lockup expired on the 9th&nbsp;of September. This can be the case with IPOs as many venture and pre-IPO investors are not able to sell their shares for a certain period.\nNow is a great time to buy with a short-term horizon. Below is a chart of UiPath’s forward revenue multiple and its share price (values on the right axis). Company multiples decreased proportionally to its share price, underlying growth remained resilient. A lot of the sellers are shaken out today and, I think, the downside from here will require concrete negative news while a return to IPO multiples will only need “some” good news. Risk-reward is skewed in the direction of the bull. With solid catalysts on the way, I think that UiPath will perform nicely over the coming months.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f1ebe0ce2030acb61150c809de27a646\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"223\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Source: CapitalIQ\nCompetition is a Key Longer-Term Issue\nI’m less certain on future returns, however. The RPA space is attracting a lot of attention from giant enterprise vendors such as&nbsp;Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT),Salesforce(NYSE:CRM), and&nbsp;ServiceNow(NYSE:NOW), in addition to many other behemoths as well as pureplay competitors (competitive landscape is available in the charts above). Although this much attention from such important companies should be construed as a bullish sign in the viability of the product, competitive threats cannot be undermined. We see clearly that UiPath is far above the rest both in terms of capabilities and in market penetration, but these advantages may not be forever. The competitors mentioned have infinite financial resources and have a much, much wider sales network than that of UiPath. If these competitors decide to prioritize RPA, the outlook could be gloomy for UiPath.\nIncreasing competition seems to be the view of industry experts as well. The&nbsp;Gartner&nbsp;report expects pricing to decrease in the coming years. This is likely the result of more similar products on the market eroding pricing power.\nI see little risk over the near term. With UiPath as the leader, it should be best positioned for the upcoming high-demand environment. Many enterprises want single vendors which will be a benefit for UiPath today as if one vendor is chosen it will likely be the one with the best product offering. However, if UiPath’s technical leadership narrows, the exact opposite could be the case.\nThere is no reason to believe that UiPath will lose its leadership position currently. The company is investing heavily into R&amp;D (32% of revenues over the past year) and the investment is bearing fruit with a lot of improvements/products on the horizon (document understanding, task mining, platform-agnostic capabilities, integration, and many more). However, the competition is a must-watch for UiPath investors.\nThis isn’t a dealbreaker as long as UiPath has the leading position, or at least until we see one or more of these enterprise software giants devoting serious resources towards the space. But the competition is still an issue as it creates execution risk; UiPath’s lunch is up for grabs if it can’t protect it.\nIndustry Switch to Cloud Bears Execution Risk\nThe future of the industry lies in the cloud; UiPath has a limited cloud offering.Only 2,850&nbsp;out of 9,100+ UiPath customers have adopted the company’s cloud offering the Automation Cloud. With a lot of these enterprises likely using hybrid solutions, UiPath’s cloud computing capabilities lag behind its on-site solutions. As innovative as UiPath is it will likely manage the transformation, but again, this presents an additional execution risk.\nValuation is the Ultimate Long-Term Worry Despite Excellent KPIs\nUiPath has amazing KPIs. Its revenue and ARR growth are excellent and it's achieving this through minimal cash burn. The 144% net revenue retention rate is among the highest in the SaaS space and shows the value of the product. The space to land and expand is also growing with the number of customers rapidly increasing.\nHowever, these metrics, like the company’s leadership position, may not be permanent and may not be enough to support a lofty valuation. The entire SaaS space is extremely expensive in my opinion, and I would not consider being a long-term holder without absolute confidence. I don’t have absolute confidence in UiPath due to material execution risk, and to hold long-term I’d want to be compensated for that risk in valuation.\nUnfortunately, a lot of the benefits of UiPath are in the price in my opinion despite the recent drawdown. Below I’ve included my data table along with an output graph comparing two-year forward multiples with expected two-year revenue growth. The chart has a high r-squared meaning that the market values the relationship. UiPath is trading in line with peers implying that it’s pretty much fairly valued even when factoring in its very high growth expectations.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/890bbbc5170ad5c0ca1ce941f057156b\" tg-width=\"619\" tg-height=\"656\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Source: CapitalIQ\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/052ee96459416e5a26793dd2a4dccc87\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"420\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\">Source: Author analysis\nI want to highlight that this comparison only justifies company valuation with respect to the SaaS space. If the SaaS space was valued like a normal industry, then I would most likely argue to buy UiPath and hold for the long-term as a quality company at a fair price. The absolute valuations are ridiculous in my opinion. The peer group average is 25x two-year forward revenues. Think about that for a minute. The Russell 3000 (represented here by iShares Russell 3000 ETF(NYSEARCA:IWV)) has a&nbsp;P/E ratio of 23x. This is trailing not forward. The SaaS group is trading at a higher ratio of not earnings but revenues. The space is very expensive and with rising interest rates, open to corrections. Of course, I see value and opportunity in certain SaaS plays, but I’m choosing to abstain here.\nThe issue was manifested in the recent quarter. The stock sold off despite the excellent results. Though I don’t expect to see this over the next few quarters due to the excellent demand environment, this could be a risk thereafter. Despite the recent price decrease buffering the downside over the near term, there are still very high expectations of UiPath leaving further room for disappointment.\nNeutral in the Long-Term Despite Bullish on Short/Medium\nUiPath is a unique software play where I am bullish over the near term, but prefer to not own over the longer. Usually, I would see drawdown risk in most of my preferred software plays over the short term, but would see the company growing into its valuation over time. Here, I see strong near-term alpha with the company delivering beyond expectations and seeing price gains towards where its been. I am much less confident in the opportunity after the RPA demand arising from corporate capital spending towards labor efficiency gets priced in which should happen over the next year.\nI want to add a P.S. here and entertain the bull thesis. I am not an engineer. I have no competitive advantage in understanding the capabilities and advantages of software services. Thus, I can’t have confidence in my analysis (reading industry reports) of technology. If you have such capabilities and believe that UiPath has a strong competitive moat that may be difficult to replicate even with intense resource spend, then by all means be bullish over any time horizon (and please let me know in the comments).\nRare case as would be the opposite usually. I’m not an engineer and don’t understand exact differentiators and capabilities. If there’s something UiPath does that can’t be replicated even with high resource spend, then bullish over the long-term as well (please let me know in the comments).","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>UiPath: Buy For The Near Term, Hold For The Long Term</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nUiPath: Buy For The Near Term, Hold For The Long Term\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-10-19 11:02 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4460444-uipath-buy-for-the-near-hold-for-the-long-term>Seeking Alpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nUiPath should deliver alpha over the near term thanks to its leadership position in the RPA space. RPA space should see elevated demand from labor issues.\nAnnual ramping of contracts should ...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4460444-uipath-buy-for-the-near-hold-for-the-long-term\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"PATH":"UiPath"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4460444-uipath-buy-for-the-near-hold-for-the-long-term","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1120786064","content_text":"Summary\n\nUiPath should deliver alpha over the near term thanks to its leadership position in the RPA space. RPA space should see elevated demand from labor issues.\nAnnual ramping of contracts should boost UiPath ARR which should in turn reflect positively in its price-action.\nLong-term is much less clear with high absolute and fair relative valuation combined with material execution risk.\n\npiranka/E+ via Getty Images\nInvestment Thesis\nUiPath(NYSE:PATH) is the leader of the robotic process automation (RPA) space. RPA will see increased demand in the current high-growth macro environment with labor shortage issues. UiPath is best positioned to capitalize on the opportunity.\nThe company is switching its focus to annual ramping which will benefit it operationally with happier customers and higher margins and inflate what matters most for investors, its annual recurring revenue (ARR).\nDespite my bullishness over the short term, I’m less confident over the long. I see execution risks primarily arising from cloud transition and competitive threats. The relatively fair, but absolutely high valuation opens the door to sub-par price performance over the long term.\nI recommend buying UiPath and monitoring noted issues. In the current picture, I recommend selling UiPath after increased demand from the macro catalysts is factored into the price.\nGreat Macro Backdrop for RPA Demand\nDemand for RPA will increase over the coming years. The backbone of my macro thesis is sticky wage inflation. There is strong labor demand with many firms downsizing during the pandemic and now all trying to re-grow their workforce in tandem. The private sector is trying to accommodate the strong pent-up demand following the pandemic. The reopening demand is further fueled by unprecedented government stimulus boosting incomes. Labor supply, however, is shrinking, both over the near term with increased incomes and structurally with many forced into early retirement and others taking a sabbatical from work who are evaluating life priorities. The shortage of labor supply and rising labor demand will cause wage inflation. Rising labor costs will catalyze investments that increase labor efficiency to protect margins; labor efficiency is th ekey value proposition of RPA.\nThe demand for RPA was already very high. RPA was the fastest-growing enterprise software segment in 2020 for the third year in a row according to Gartner. The market research company expects the excellent performance to continue with double-digit growth rates through 2024. Bear in mind that the high labor demand with the reopening picture was unclear at the time of these reports (latest released May 2021) as was the wage inflation and short labor supply. I believe that RPA adoption rates will be even higher than the high expectations due to the favorable macro-backdrop.\nCorporate investments into RPA should be further catalyzed by strong economic growth and low interest rates. These are also central pillars of my reopening macro-view. Technical stagflation is top-of-mind, but the environment is ripe for corporate investment practically. GDP growth may be technically decelerating but is still very high; interest rates and inflation may be climbing, and I expect them to climb further, but are still very low. The strong economy and low rates will increase corporate investment spend, RPA vendors will be key beneficiaries.\nBusiness consulting firms’ RPA focus is both evidence of industry experts’ confidence in the upcoming RPA demand as well as a catalyzer to industry growth. Major professional services firms are pushing their RPA services including Accenture(NYSE:ACN),Deloitte,E&Y,PwC,Cognizant(NASDAQ:CTSH),CGI(NYSE:GIB),Tata Consulting(TCS),Infosys(NYSE:INFY),Genpact(NYSE:G) along with many others. People in the know are investing in RPA as well as investing to grow RPA.\nAs the Leading RPA Vendor, UiPath has a Bright Near-Medium Term Outlook\nUiPath is the undisputed leader in the RPA space. Gartner produces a Magic Quadrant for the industry (chart below) which compares market players in their ability to execute and on their vision. UiPath is above the rest with best-in-class execution ability with a complete vision. UiPath’s domination is obvious; this is its third consecutive year in the leader chair. The Forrester Wave, another trusted technology services research firm,places UiPath in the pole position on its matrix which compares current offerings, strategy, and market presence. UiPath’s leadership is reflected in its market share; UiPath has a 29% market share of the RPA space, more than double its nearest competitor. UiPath is dominating the secular growth enterprise software segment that is RPA.\n\nSource: The Forrester Wave as displayed on SmartBridge\nAs the spending towards RPA grows so will UiPath’s revenue. As both the technical and market share leader it should see a very large percentage of the growing RPA spend. UiPath is among the best positioned to capitalize on the macroeconomic and corporate spending dynamics of the coming months.\nARR is Important and ARR will Get a Boost\nThe recent earnings call was very informative on UiPath’s ARR strategy. The company will be focusing on annual contracts instead of long-term ones. Usually, I wouldn’t be fond of this move as it means lower revenue visibility despite the pricing advantages of short-duration contracts. But in this case, I think that it’s the right thing to do. Annual contracts drive higher ROI for UiPath customers; according to management, customers make better use of UiPath when they get as much as they need instead of front-loading robots to take advantage of better prices through discounts. This is financially favorable for UiPath as well since long-term contracts tend to include price discounts; decreasing contract duration will result in fewer discounts and higher margins for UiPath.\nAnnual recurring revenue is critical for any service that offers subscriptions. This is due to the resiliency of recurring revenues; contracts are near-impossible and subscriptions are difficult to cancel in a downturn. Moreover, subscription software products have a learning curve and are difficult to churn from. Subscription revenues are highly visible and are highly valued by the market evident in the commonness of nosebleed valuations in the SaaS space. ARR will be key to watch for UiPath as self-described as their “most important metric”.\nThe switch to shorter-duration contracts will inflate ARR at the cost of revenue volatility.ASC 606 mandates that a percentage of revenue be recognized immediately and the rest amortized for long-term contracts. This artificially increases front-period revenues. UiPath focusing on annual ramping as opposed to long-term deals will reduce near-term revenues. However, ARR will increase as yearly amounts will increase due to lower discounts. I believe that higher ARR is what the market values and that this switch will benefit UiPath in market sentiment as well as operationally.\nTake Advantage of the Current Decline\nUiPath shares declined dramatically in September to deeply below IPO levels. The drawdown is even more surprising given the excellent results the company announced which was met with an immediate ~10% fall.\nSource: TradingView\nI see two main reasons for the falling-knife-like price action in the face of excellent operating performance: weak guidance and early investors leaving the train.\nUiPath announced results that beat across the board. UiPath delivered a top-line beat of $195.5 mn in revenue vs. the consensus estimate of $186.5 coupled with an ARR growth of 60% YoY vs. 55% consensus expectations. The company delivered operating profits vs. expectations of deep losses along with almost $30 mn narrower than expected FCF burn. So why didn’t the market like the results? My guess is high expectations. I think that the guidance was low looking further into the release and prior releases. UiPath beat its ARR guidance this quarter by a whopping $23.5 mn ($726.5 mn vs. at the mid-point of $702 mn - $704 mn guidance range). However, full-year guidance was only increased by $26 mn (at the mid-point, the range increased from $850 mn - $855 mn to $876 mn - $881 mn). What the market is reading here is that the demand environment seems to be slowing in the second half of the year and that the growth may decelerate from here out.\nI disagree with the market. I think that the management is sandbagging the guidance and leaving itself room to overdeliver. I highly doubt that the demand for its products will decrease in this environment but only accelerate and the set-up for alpha is great over the near term.\nA lot of early investors cashed out further pushing down the price. UiPath’s IPO lockup expired on the 9th of September. This can be the case with IPOs as many venture and pre-IPO investors are not able to sell their shares for a certain period.\nNow is a great time to buy with a short-term horizon. Below is a chart of UiPath’s forward revenue multiple and its share price (values on the right axis). Company multiples decreased proportionally to its share price, underlying growth remained resilient. A lot of the sellers are shaken out today and, I think, the downside from here will require concrete negative news while a return to IPO multiples will only need “some” good news. Risk-reward is skewed in the direction of the bull. With solid catalysts on the way, I think that UiPath will perform nicely over the coming months.\nSource: CapitalIQ\nCompetition is a Key Longer-Term Issue\nI’m less certain on future returns, however. The RPA space is attracting a lot of attention from giant enterprise vendors such as Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT),Salesforce(NYSE:CRM), and ServiceNow(NYSE:NOW), in addition to many other behemoths as well as pureplay competitors (competitive landscape is available in the charts above). Although this much attention from such important companies should be construed as a bullish sign in the viability of the product, competitive threats cannot be undermined. We see clearly that UiPath is far above the rest both in terms of capabilities and in market penetration, but these advantages may not be forever. The competitors mentioned have infinite financial resources and have a much, much wider sales network than that of UiPath. If these competitors decide to prioritize RPA, the outlook could be gloomy for UiPath.\nIncreasing competition seems to be the view of industry experts as well. The Gartner report expects pricing to decrease in the coming years. This is likely the result of more similar products on the market eroding pricing power.\nI see little risk over the near term. With UiPath as the leader, it should be best positioned for the upcoming high-demand environment. Many enterprises want single vendors which will be a benefit for UiPath today as if one vendor is chosen it will likely be the one with the best product offering. However, if UiPath’s technical leadership narrows, the exact opposite could be the case.\nThere is no reason to believe that UiPath will lose its leadership position currently. The company is investing heavily into R&D (32% of revenues over the past year) and the investment is bearing fruit with a lot of improvements/products on the horizon (document understanding, task mining, platform-agnostic capabilities, integration, and many more). However, the competition is a must-watch for UiPath investors.\nThis isn’t a dealbreaker as long as UiPath has the leading position, or at least until we see one or more of these enterprise software giants devoting serious resources towards the space. But the competition is still an issue as it creates execution risk; UiPath’s lunch is up for grabs if it can’t protect it.\nIndustry Switch to Cloud Bears Execution Risk\nThe future of the industry lies in the cloud; UiPath has a limited cloud offering.Only 2,850 out of 9,100+ UiPath customers have adopted the company’s cloud offering the Automation Cloud. With a lot of these enterprises likely using hybrid solutions, UiPath’s cloud computing capabilities lag behind its on-site solutions. As innovative as UiPath is it will likely manage the transformation, but again, this presents an additional execution risk.\nValuation is the Ultimate Long-Term Worry Despite Excellent KPIs\nUiPath has amazing KPIs. Its revenue and ARR growth are excellent and it's achieving this through minimal cash burn. The 144% net revenue retention rate is among the highest in the SaaS space and shows the value of the product. The space to land and expand is also growing with the number of customers rapidly increasing.\nHowever, these metrics, like the company’s leadership position, may not be permanent and may not be enough to support a lofty valuation. The entire SaaS space is extremely expensive in my opinion, and I would not consider being a long-term holder without absolute confidence. I don’t have absolute confidence in UiPath due to material execution risk, and to hold long-term I’d want to be compensated for that risk in valuation.\nUnfortunately, a lot of the benefits of UiPath are in the price in my opinion despite the recent drawdown. Below I’ve included my data table along with an output graph comparing two-year forward multiples with expected two-year revenue growth. The chart has a high r-squared meaning that the market values the relationship. UiPath is trading in line with peers implying that it’s pretty much fairly valued even when factoring in its very high growth expectations.\nSource: CapitalIQ\nSource: Author analysis\nI want to highlight that this comparison only justifies company valuation with respect to the SaaS space. If the SaaS space was valued like a normal industry, then I would most likely argue to buy UiPath and hold for the long-term as a quality company at a fair price. The absolute valuations are ridiculous in my opinion. The peer group average is 25x two-year forward revenues. Think about that for a minute. The Russell 3000 (represented here by iShares Russell 3000 ETF(NYSEARCA:IWV)) has a P/E ratio of 23x. This is trailing not forward. The SaaS group is trading at a higher ratio of not earnings but revenues. The space is very expensive and with rising interest rates, open to corrections. Of course, I see value and opportunity in certain SaaS plays, but I’m choosing to abstain here.\nThe issue was manifested in the recent quarter. The stock sold off despite the excellent results. Though I don’t expect to see this over the next few quarters due to the excellent demand environment, this could be a risk thereafter. Despite the recent price decrease buffering the downside over the near term, there are still very high expectations of UiPath leaving further room for disappointment.\nNeutral in the Long-Term Despite Bullish on Short/Medium\nUiPath is a unique software play where I am bullish over the near term, but prefer to not own over the longer. Usually, I would see drawdown risk in most of my preferred software plays over the short term, but would see the company growing into its valuation over time. Here, I see strong near-term alpha with the company delivering beyond expectations and seeing price gains towards where its been. I am much less confident in the opportunity after the RPA demand arising from corporate capital spending towards labor efficiency gets priced in which should happen over the next year.\nI want to add a P.S. here and entertain the bull thesis. I am not an engineer. I have no competitive advantage in understanding the capabilities and advantages of software services. Thus, I can’t have confidence in my analysis (reading industry reports) of technology. If you have such capabilities and believe that UiPath has a strong competitive moat that may be difficult to replicate even with intense resource spend, then by all means be bullish over any time horizon (and please let me know in the comments).\nRare case as would be the opposite usually. I’m not an engineer and don’t understand exact differentiators and capabilities. If there’s something UiPath does that can’t be replicated even with high resource spend, then bullish over the long-term as well (please let me know in the comments).","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":519,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"CN","currentLanguage":"CN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":4,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ZH_CN"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}