VIQ Solutions (VQS-X)

VQS’s growth has accelerated in recent years driven mainly through acquisitions by issuing shares and it is now trading at 0.5x times' Price/Book. In the 4Q, VQS’s revenue grew 32% to $10.2M, missing the estimates of $10.7M and EPS is -$0.16 missing estimates of -$0.08. The balance sheet is quite leveraged, with net debt of $8M, compared to the trailing twelve-month cash flow of -$8.2M, and cash flow declined compared to $3.4M last year. Based on consensus estimates, sales are expected to grow by around 7% in the next two years.

The company has been growing mainly through share issuance to do acquisitions which we remain cautious on due to the risk of dilution. Also, the company is currently unprofitable, and cash flow is negative. We think there are better opportunities in the market. Overall, we consider the name to be highly volatile, we would be mindful of its size risks. Also, we would prefer to wait until profitability has been achieved.
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Their specialty is secure recordings of audio and conversations for courts. They continue to do a lot of pilot projects. Earnings results have not yet shown up.

They were in the court recording technology area, but now morphed it into all kinds of video data, such as police departments. It had a nice turnaround and they are generating nice cash flow and are a pretty good earnings story.

Automating digital recordings of video. The new management team has set some great plans for going forward.