GlobalData – this group’s mission is to help clients decode the future, make better decisions, and to reach more customers – it is about to move to the Main Market. Shares 178p, Brokers TP 304p

11.03.2025

Yesterday’s announcement of its 2024 Full Year Results from GlobalData (LON:DATA), the data, insight and technology group showed profitable growth and strong foundations embedded to execute its declared ‘Growth Transformation Plan’ just as it looks to switch on to the Main Market.

The Business

Capitalised at £1.6bn, this London-based group is a leading data, analytics, insights and technology platform for the world's largest industries.

Its declared mission is to help its clients decode the future, make better decisions, and reach more customers.

The company’s One Platform model is the foundation of its business and is the result of years of continuous investment, targeted acquisitions, and organic development.

The model governs everything that it does, from how it develops and manages its products, to its approach to sales and customer success, and supporting business operations.

It integrates the group’s unique data, expert analysis, and innovative solutions into an integrated suite of client solutions and digital community platforms, designed to serve a broad range of industry markets and customer needs on a global basis.

The operational leverage this provides means it can respond rapidly to changing customer needs and market opportunities, and continuously manage and develop products quickly, at scale, with limited capital investment as well as providing unique integration opportunities for mergers and acquisition.

The group’s four strategic priorities are: Customer Obsession, World-Class Product, Sales Excellence and Operational Agility.

The 2024 Final Results

Yesterday’s announcement showed that the group grew its revenues by 5% to £285.5m (£273.1m) in the year to end-December.

Reflecting its trading performance and the reduction in its finance costs, its pre-tax profits were up an impressive 32% to £54.9m (£41.5m), generating a 10% increase in its adjusted earnings per share to 7.5p (6.8p), but it lowered by 46% its total dividends for the year to 2.5p (4.6p) as par of a rebasing strategy to focus the group’s capital on expansion.

The group signed new £340m debt financing facilities giving it significant firepower to execute its future M&A strategy.

Current Trading and Outlook

The group reported that its robust outlook is underpinned by high levels of revenue visibility, by the good execution of its Growth Transformation Plan and a strong financial position that allows continued investment in strategic growth opportunities.

It declared that it has clear financial targets for FY25 and beyond:

·       With a Platform in place to accelerate organic and inorganic growth opportunities across its two customer-focused divisions.

·       It is targeting annualised revenue of £500m by the end of 2026, through a combination of high single to double-digit organic revenue growth and M&A activity.

·       The group is steadily progressing towards a 45% Adjusted EBITDA margin over the course of the plan period and reinvesting into its Growth Transformation Plan.

Management Comment

CEO Mike Danson stated that:

“2024 was transformational for GlobalData following Inflexion's significant investment in June 2024, which strengthened our balance sheet and accelerated our growth strategy.

We have launched and made significant progress in our 2024-26 Growth Transformation Plan, particularly through our AI-first approach.

Our AI Hub combines our proprietary data with advanced AI capabilities to deliver enhanced value to our customers and has rapidly gained traction, now serving over 42,000 users.

Strategic M&A remains a core element of our growth strategy, with four earning accretive acquisitions completed during the year, strengthening our One Platform offering.

With much of the foundational work to re-organise the business and set us up for accelerated growth now completed, we enter 2025 with clear priorities and a strengthened team to deliver.

With strong revenue visibility, a clear transformation roadmap, and the financial capacity to execute, we're confidently progressing toward our target of £500m annualised revenue by 2026.”

The Equity

There are some 829.70m shares in issue.

The largest holder is CEO Michael Danson with 58.19% of the equity.

Other larger holders include Liontrust Asset Management (6.94%), the GlobalData EBT (4.64%), Investec Wealth & Investment (1.38%), Canaccord Genuity Wealth (1.38%), Aberdeen Investment Management (1.29%), Royal London Asset Management (1.22%), Chelverton Asset Management (0.90%), Rathbones Investment Management (0.76%), BlackRock Investment Management (0.58%), FIL Investment Advisors (0.56%) and Herald Investment Management (0.41%).

Analyst’s Views

At Singer Capital Markets, its analysts James Musker and Harold Evans rate the group’s shares as a Buy, looking for 250p a share.

Their estimates for the current year to end-December are for revenues of £340.8m (£285.5m), with adjusted pre-tax profits of £130.4m (£98.9m), lifting earnings to 9.8p (7.4p), while lowering the dividend again to just 1.86p (2.50p) per share.

For 2026 they see £362.9m sales, £146.8m profits, 11.0p earnings and the 1.86p dividend.

Over at Panmure Liberum, its analyst Johnathan Barrett reckons that the group is well positioned for growth.

His Buy rating has a yesterday raised Target Price of 304p, up from 288p previously.

His 2025 estimates are for £340.0m sales, £121.4m profits, 8.4p earnings and 1.6p dividend per share.

For next year he looks for £360.0m sales with £137.5m profits, earnings of 9.6p and a 1.7p dividend.

Even further ahead his 2027 estimate is for £380.0m revenues, £154.0m profits, 10.8p earnings and paying out a 1.9p per share dividend.

In My View

This group has a very clear Growth Plan in place and moving up from AIM to the Main Market gives a clear indication of it looking to professional investors to support its expansion strategy.

The shares at just 178p look very capable of a strong upward push this year.