November has been eventful with several Q3 2024 reports across the SaaS sector and the announcement that Visma will make a voluntary recommended public takeover offer to purchase all shares in Penneo for approx. DKK 562m (DKK 16.50 per share, a premium of approx. 110%), corresponding to EV/ARR of approx. 5.8x. The takeover/acquisition ARR multiple is also significantly above the median ARR multiple of 3.4x of the Danish SaaS sector by the end of November 2024, yet somewhat close to other recent acquisitions from Digizuite (6.9x ARR) and Relesys (5.1x ARR).

Across the broader global/US SaaS sector, software shares rebounded significantly in November. The median ARR multiple increased to 7.3x by the end of November 2024 (from 6.9x ARR) based on data from The SaaS Capital Index. The rebound is supported by strong US Q3 SaaS reports with improved profitability and FCF. AI may also explain the recent momentum and rotation into the global SaaS sector, which somewhat has stopped the AI-kills-software thesis.

Despite strong US Q3 SaaS reports, the Danish SaaS Q3 reports that came out in November, showed more mixed results. Q3 is often a difficult quarter due to the effects of summer/vacation and decisions being postponed to Q4 which is normally the seasonally strongest quarter for enterprise SaaS sales.

Read the newsletter here: Link

Disclaimer: HC Andersen Capital receives payment from some of the mentioned SaaS companies in the newsletter (Agillic, Impero, MapsPeople, OrderYOYO, and Penneo) for a Digital IR/Corporate Visibility subscription agreement. /Kasper Lihn 14:58, 10 December 2024.