In FY22 (to 31 Dec 22) PensionBee continued to rapidly grow, despite market falls, and gain market share (page 2) in the structurally growing £700bn target market of transferable DC pensions (page 12). Invested customers grew 56% to 183k, AUA 17% to £3.03bn (net inflows +£863m, market movements -£424m), and revenue 38% to £17.7m. Adjusted EBITDA started to ‘turn the corner’ towards profitability and is forecast to turn positive on a monthly basis by the end of 2023. The net cash position is robust at £21m with no new cash raising envisaged.
We also flag the encouraging jump in investor interest in PBEE shares - especially after its Jan 23 trading update which showed the path to profitability was on track - with the recent price rise accompanied by strong volumes. On top of its fundamentals, PensionBee’s inclusion in the FTSE All-Share and FTSE SmallCap indices from 20 Mar 23 should be another positive for the share price.
PensionBee’s customer acquisition growth path compared to incumbents indicates it is rapidly gaining market share. In H2 of 2022, it added 24k net new invested customers (H2-22 annualised growth rate of 30%):
• This was more than double the total number of net new D2C platform clients (pension and other clients) added by AJ Bell (10k, which translated to an H2-22 annualised growth rate of 7%).
• And it was only a little less than the total number of net new clients (pension and other clients) added by the UK’s largest D2C investment platform, Hargreaves Lansdown (HL), which added 31k (an H2-22 annualised growth rate of 4%), and much higher than HL’s new pension accounts (13k net new SIPP accounts and 16k ISA and other accounts).
Our forecasts remain unchanged, as does our fundamental value of 150p per share.
