Barratt has been on a roll on the stock exchange for some time some now. By contrast, the valuation of Monitise has been hammered in recent months. A very successful homebuilder and a payment processor that is fighting hard to turn its fortunes around: what do they have in common aside from very different financials and prospects?
We investigated the efficiency of their websites. Here are our findings.
Preliminary SEO Audit
Our preliminary SEO audit has focussed on barratthomes.co.uk and monitise.com, neither of which presents a flawless on-page strategy. Speed metrics indicate that swift intervention is needed to boost their online performances, both on mobile and desktop — that’s particularly true for Monitise. An average technical set-up has been detected.
A round of on-page optimisation is recommended for both websites, and should be aimed at:
- structure
- hierarchy
- several navigation features
Our comprehensive SEO audits will be disclosed on Thursday.
Financials
Monitise announced its 2015 results today, which showed:
- Revenue down 6% to £89.7m (FY 2014: £95.1m).
- Ebitda loss at £41.8m (FY 2014: £31.4m loss)
- Operating costs of £88.3m (FY 2014: £93.1m)
- Adjusted net loss of £55.3m (FY 2014: £43.7m)
- Statutory loss after tax of £223.6m (FY 2014: £60.1m), or a loss per share of 10.8p (FY 2014: 3.6p)
- Cash capex was at the upper end of the guidance range at £45m (FY 2014: £26.1m)
- Gross cash of £88.8m as at 30 June 2015
Its chief executive’s gone, it emerged today. You are not impressed?
Well, a rights issue may well be around the corner.
Here are Barratt’s annual result for the year ended 30 June 2015, which were released today:
- The private average selling price increased by 8.7% to £262,500 (2014: £241,600)
- Pre-tax profit rose by 44.8% to £565.5m (2014: £390.6m)
- Return on capital employed up 440 basis points to 23.9% (2014: 19.5%)
- Net cash at 30 June 2015 of £186.5m (2014: £73.1m)
- Total FY15 capital return of £250m (2014: £102m), or 25.1p per share (2014: 10.3p per share)
In short, 2016 is shaping up to be another great year for the homebuilder, whose valuation — as gauged by its fundamentals and trading metrics — is not particularly demanding.
If you want to discuss the prospects of higher tangible returns for the online strategy of Barratt Development and Monitise, please contact our team at info@hedgingbeta.com
(Alessandro Pasetti and Hedging Beta are not invested in any of the shares mentioned in this article.)