Vonage Holdings Corp. (VG)

Shares of Vonage Holdings (VG) jumped after Scott Deveau of Bloomberg reported that activist investor Jana Partners has called on the company to hire advisers to explore strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of all or parts of the business. People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Barry Rosenstein's Jana, which owns about 4% of Vonage, has discussed its views with the company and fellow shareholders after a previous review of the company's consumer business failed to result in a sale. Jana believes Vonage's current corporate structure prevents its underlying businesses from achieving their true value, sources told Bloomberg. Shares of Vonage are up 5% to $14.12 following the report.

CleverTap Partners with Nexmo, the Vonage API Platform, Empowers Marketers to Communicate with their Customers at Scale
PR Newswire PR Newswire•March 6, 2019
Mobile marketers can now leverage various channels of customer communications, such as SMS, social messaging apps and more, to craft engaging customer experiences that drive reliable long-term user retention and customer satisfaction with reliability and dependability

SAN FRANCISCO, March 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The leading mobile marketing automation platform, CleverTap, today announced it has chosen, Vonage (VG), a business cloud communications leader, to enable additional user engagement channels directly from CleverTap's mobile automation platform via Nexmo, the Vonage API Platform. With this partnership, clients can easily build personalized omnichannel communications experiences throughout the entire customer life cycle at scale, creating valuable customer relationships and enhanced engagement.

CleverTap is a powerful mobile marketing solution that helps marketers create differentiated omnichannel customer engagement strategies that drive exponential growth. Every day, thousands of brands build valuable customer relationships using CleverTap’s intelligent mobile marketing platform, which provides actionable, real-time insights to help create amazing customer experiences. (PRNewsfoto/CleverTap)
CleverTap is a powerful mobile marketing solution that helps marketers create differentiated omnichannel customer engagement strategies that drive exponential growth. Every day, thousands of brands build valuable customer relationships using CleverTap’s intelligent mobile marketing platform, which provides actionable, real-time insights to help create amazing customer experiences. (PRNewsfoto/CleverTap)
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Consumers today interact with brands through multiple touchpoints. 90% of consumers start a task on one device and finish it on another.* As consumer behavior changes, marketers need to adapt and evolve their engagement strategies to ensure a seamless customer journey. To deliver a holistic customer experience, marketers need to eliminate data silos, orchestrate consumer journeys across channels, and engage with the customer through the most relevant channel based on preference.

"CleverTap provides some of the world's largest companies with the best-of-breed mobile marketing solutions to help them create a seamless customer experience," said Sunil Thomas, co-founder and CEO of CleverTap. "Nexmo's proven expertise in the cloud communications space, combined with its ability to swiftly leverage the latest technological advances, makes Nexmo a key partner for us. CleverTap customers can focus on building differentiated engagement strategies that win without having to worry about operational issues such as security, deliverability, and reliability."

"Vonage's partnership with CleverTap empowers customers to engage with their users through the right channels with the right message at scale and provides a superior experience that drives long-term user retention and revenues," said Omar Javaid, Vonage Chief Product Officer. "The ability to auto-segment users in real-time based on their propensity to respond positively to a specific message on a favorable channel is what makes this partnership unique."

J.P. Morgan Says There’s Room for Over 50% Gains in These 2 Stocks
VG
+0.82%

BTRS
+0.34%
TipRanks
Fri, November 12, 2021, 2:21 PM·5 min read
In this article: VG +0.82% BTRS +0.34%

Wall Street’s major banking firms build their reputations, in part, on their ability to see the dark future clearly. JPMorgan has a storied name on the Street, and the banking giant’s Asset Management team has recently been casting its collective eye forward.

"We are increasingly convinced that the pandemic will leave behind few economic scars, however we expect the policy interventions at the height of the crisis will have a long-lasting impact on markets... Our overall message is optimistic," said John Bilton, head of global multi-asset strategy.

Keeping that in mind, we’re taking a look at two stocks recommended by some of JPMorgan's top analysts. These are analysts who stand tall among their peers, ranking in the top 10% of Wall Street pros covered by TipRanks. Impressively, the firm's analysts believe each ticker could climb over 50% higher in the year ahead. Let's take a closer look.

Fri, November 12, 2021, 2:21 PM·5 min read
In this article:

VG
+0.82%
The second JPM pick we’ll look at is Vonage, a tech company in the telecom industry. Vonage has put together a package combining high tech know-how with telecom service, and offers its customers VOIP and cloud communications for contact center applications and communications APIs.

Vonage is working to change the way people think about using communications technology. The company noted the shift toward remote work and virtual connections during the pandemic – and especially how that increased the value of networked remote systems and internet communications. Vonage’s products include platforms to bundle these services together, along with legacy telecom systems. These products are flexible and scalable, designed to meet the needs of each customer.

The approach is working for Vonage, which has shown sequential gains in every quarter of this year, along with year-over-year gains. The 3Q21 report gave $358.3 million at the top line, and for the 9 months ending Sept 30,

BTRS
+0.34%

We’ll start with BTRS Holdings, or Billtrust, a leader in the payment processing niche. BTRS serves business customers in the US, with a B2B accounts receivable automation software platform. This holding company’s subsidiaries provide solutions for cloud-based software and integrated payment processing, including online ordering, invoicing, remittance capture, and accounts receivable. The company boasts over 40 verticals covering a range of industries, and a 98% customer retention rate.

Just last month, BTRS made a move to expand the value of its platform, through its acquisition of Belgium’s iController, a B2B collections software provider. The acquisition cost BTRS $58 million, which was paid for from cash on hand. iController will become a BTRS subsidiary, and continue operating in Belgium and the Netherlands – expanding BTRS’ footprint in Western Europe.

This move put some of BTRS’ cash holdings to sound use. The company finished Q3 this year with over $265 million in liquid assets, before the acquisition. BTRS also reported revenues of $41.4 million in Q3, up an 8% year-over-year. The gain was driven mainly be a solid performance in software and payments; that segment saw revenue increase by 21.5% yoy, to reach $26 million.

Even with that, however, the stock dropped sharply this year, losing 45% of its value. Yet, JPMorgan's 5-star analyst Tien-tsin Huang sees the current low share price as a chance to buy in.

“Broad-based momentum across the business drove net revenue mildly ahead of expectations. Management suggested greater upside in the key Software/Payments segment," Huang noted. "We think relative valuation is attractive... Stock is trading at a low enough discount now that compounding steady high-teens plus gross profit growth should be good enough for the stock to compound higher as sentiment improves from stable to improving growth.

To this end, Huang gives BTRS an Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating, with a $15 price target predicting 72% share growth in the year ahead. (To watch Huang’s track record, click here)

Overall, it’s clear from the Strong Buy consensus that Wall Street agrees with the bullish outlook here. The consensus view is based on a unanimous 5 recent reviews. The share price stands at $8.72 and the average price target of $14.20 implies ~63% upside potential.
BTRS Holdings (BTRS)

We’ll start with BTRS Holdings, or Billtrust, a leader in the payment processing niche. BTRS serves business customers in the US, with a B2B accounts receivable automation software platform. This holding company’s subsidiaries provide solutions for cloud-based software and integrated payment processing, including online ordering, invoicing, remittance capture, and accounts receivable. The company boasts over 40 verticals covering a range of industries, and a 98% customer retention rate.

Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan maintained a Buy rating on Vonage Holdings (VG – Research Report) today and set a price target of $14. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $10.45.
Horan said:
“Consolidated revenue beat our ests. by 60 bps, and EBITDA margins were a slight 50 bps miss vs. our estimate, but a 25% YOY decline as the company invests in sales and its one network platform to accelerate growth. Gross margin increased 30 bps sequentially to 59.4%. UCaaS saw a slight tick up in growth to 13%, with Nexmo in line with recent trends at 42%. VG’s two recent acquisitions (NewVoiceMedia and Tokbox), should help it appeal to larger customers with its unique set of CPaaS services. VG business revenues are now 65% of revenues and growing 23%, and accelerating, helped by innovative new services—CX CPaaS offerings. Full year guidance was maintained.”
According to TipRanks.com, Horan is a top 25 analyst with an average return of 17.3% and a 76.5% success rate. Horan covers the Technology sector, focusing on stocks such as Interxion Holding NV, Boingo Wireless Inc, and Limelight Networks.
The word on The Street in general, suggests a Strong Buy analyst consensus rating for Vonage Holdings with a $14 average price target, representing a 34.0% upside. In a report issued on April 24, Stephens also reiterated a Buy rating on the stock.

Just read the Proxy Statement. How could this board approve an 81% bonus payout when they barely sqeaked by the minimum target for Bus Revenue in 2020. Bus Rev makes up 75% of overall bonus target. While the rest of us took a 25% hit on the stock price this leadership team got 81% of bonus. All because of layup EBITDA max target. The difference from target to max doesnt even cover the bonus expense itself. Fisher should be thrown off the board for approving that plan. No wonder they blew EPS by so much. Hats off to whoever sold the board that plan back in Feb 2020. Fisher is up for election so vote your shares. send a message. Yeah and good job for blowing out that BS 5% net promoter score metric.

What a disaster. One year performance:

RNG: 41%
BAND: 23%
FIVN: 26%
TWLO: 36%
VG: -25%

Good thing management compensates itself nicely. Shareholder value is only under-performing peers by 50%.