Mobile donations company Pushpay Holdings has managed to lift its bottom line despite lower-than-expected customer growth, Covid-19 disruptions and a tight labour market.
Mobile donations company Pushpay's underlying profit of $99.2m was within its prior forecast of between $97.8m and 100.9m. Photo: 123RF
The New Zealand-owned, US-based company, provides mobile donation services to churches and charities in North America.
Key numbers for the year ended March compared to a year ago:
- Net profit $53.1m vs $42.9m
- Underlying profit $99.2m vs 93.6m
- Revenue $322.5m vs $249m
- Cash flow $97.7m vs $91.6m
- Total funds processed $12.1b vs $ 9.8b
- No dividend declared.
Pushpay chief executive Molly Matthews said the company had made significant progress on its growth strategy, which includes lifting customer numbers and expanding the suite of products it offers.
The company's underlying profit of $99.2m was within its prior forecast of between $97.8m and 100.9m.
This was despite numerous headwinds, such as a shift in software buying behaviour and consolidation of small market, Covid-19 disruptions and an increasingly competitive labour market.
"A number of initiatives were implemented during the year to response to market headwinds, including to refresh and strengthen Pushpay's go-to market strategy and investment in talent and capability."
It added 3409 new customers, of which 2858 came from the acquisition of Resi Media, taking the total customer base to 14,508.
However, the company said the growth was lower than internal expectations.
The company's margins were unchanged on a year ago at 68 percent.
Costs jumped by more than a quarter over the year to $132.6m due to the additional expenses associated with Resi Media and the cost of hiring more staff.
Pushpay said it had strong cash flow at $97.7m and been able to reduce net debt.
The company had completed its first year of investment in trying to capture a slice of the Catholic market serving 173 parishes.
It was estimated that there were 17,000 parishes across North America.
Internal restructure
Pushpay was also announcing that it intended to conduct an internal restructure to transfer its intellectual property from a local subsidiary to a US Pushpay subsidiary.
The company said the IP was developed locally but over the past few years there had been a progressive shift in the company's location to the US, where 98 percent of its revenues come from.
It said the shift would save the company about $11.1m in annual tax "for a number of financial years" because of the different way IP is taxed in ther US.
The company had proactively engaged with IRD about the transferral and said it was committed to meeting its tax obligations in all jurisdictions.
Pushpay expected the transaction would be completed in the next few months and the costs would be included the FY22 and FY 23 financial years.
Outlook
Looking ahead, Pushpay was forecasting a lower underlying profit for the current financial year of between $89m and $97m, reflecting continued investments in staff and growth opportunities.
However, it was hoping to deliver double digit annual operating revenues.
The company provided an outlook for the 2024 financial year as well, saying it hoped to process more than $15.9b through its platforms and have more than 20,000 customers.
Pushpay provided no further updates on recent takeover interest in the company.
