저자: ParkevTatevosian,CFA · 외국인
요약 보기
팔란티어는 상업 매출 급성장(US 상업매출 +71%, 최근 분기 상업 TCV 8.1억달러 +183%)으로 펀더멘털은 강하지만, 선행 PER 241배로 극단적 고평가. 자체 DCF 적정가 34달러로 주가가 과대평가. 실적 발표 전 매수는 비추천, 하방 리스크(20~30% 급락 가능)가 상방보다 크므로 실적 이후 판단 권고.
다듬은 글
Palanteer Monday, August 4th, 2025. Of course, investors are asking me if they should buy this AI need to look out for from Palunteer in the upcoming earnings release. for Palunteer which calculates what I believe to be a fair value for this business. I'll als perspective. All to give you the answer of what I think about this investment coming into this earnings releas.
Let's start with the latest earnings release and what they reported to investors and what you should look for in the upcoming release. So in the first quarter 2025, the company's highlights included US revenue which increased 55% year-over-year. More importantly, US commercial revenue increased by 71% year-over-year.
Remember, the company generates revenue from government contracts and from commercial contracts, which are contracts from businesses. And what I've been talking about for several years now is the opportunity in commercial contracts. And this is what I believe what has created this big stock price increase for Palunteer this year is the accelerated growth in commercial revenue because the opportunity with business is much larger than the opportunity with governments.
The government business was great for Palunteer in getting it started in establishing its credibility and opening doors for the company and developing its expertise. But moving forward in order to unlock the value of this business, they need to continue expanding with enterprise and more importantly they need to be able to deliver their services in a way that makes it more affordable to more enterprises.
Now, I want you to pay attention to the way I said that they need to make their business more affordable in a way that makes it more affordable. Now, I didn't say they need to lower their price. I just said that they need to find a way to make it more affordable. Now, that could mean a lower price. It could also mean favorable contract terms, uh, preferential payment terms, right?
where it can offer its customers a, you know, longer payback term, lower interest rates. It can say, "We'll deliver our service to you this year, but you don't have to pay us back until next year or 18 months later." Uh, however, they find a way or maybe they find a way to implement their service at a lower cost and so they can offer a lower price.
There are several ways a business can make their products and services more affordable to customers and that's what Palunteer needs to do because without a question they are the best in class in using artificial intelligence to improve decision making. Businesses need that. The constraint for business is that the price tag Palanteer comes with puts it out of reach for many many businesses.
Right? A business like mine. I would love to use Palanteer services, but they're out of reach for me. My business is a too small of a scale to have that kind of uh availability for a service like Palanteer. They look for businesses with uh much larger revenue, much larger profitability, many more employees.
But if they can make their service more attractive and affordable to smaller and smaller and smaller business, that opens their opportunity set to a much larger opportunity than what currently exists. They don't have too many customers. They don't have too many customers. They have customer counts in the hundreds.
Hundreds. not even in the thousands. So they are generating significant millions of revenue from each customer. And so if they can expand the reach, expand the amount of customers they can serve, that can unlock a huge opportunity set for Palunteer. So in the latest quarter, they booked their highest quarter of commercial revenue of 810 million, which was up 183% year-over-year.
Remember, the company when it signs a deal, let's say it signs a 5-year, $100 million deal, they can't count that as revenue immediately. They can't say, "We just made 100 million in revenue." No, they can only recognize the revenue as they serve the customer. So, if it's a 5-year, $100 million contract, they recognize 20 million per year or almost 2 million per month.
That's how they can recognize that as revenue. So when they sign new contracts, where you'll see it first is right here. And this is the number you should be looking for more so than what the company reports in revenue and profitability. This number is more important. And that's the US commercial total contract value.
You want to see numbers. Anywhere near this level would be incredible. This 810 million was 183% year-over-year growth. Anything around this level would be great. Uh their remaining deal value 2.32 billion and that was up 127% year-over-year. Again, you want to see this number and anything near these levels would be a very very strong quarter from Palentio.
Now, profitability has been improving dramatically at the company. gap income from operations at 176 million represented a 20% operating profit margin. And if revenue continues to grow at the pace it been increasing at 39% in the most recent quarter, I expect operating margin will continue growing over the years, but over this next quarter or two, their operating profit margin may take a hit.
So, I'm paying extra close attention to this because uh something management said in late uh 2024, I want to say middle of 2024, late 2024, management said that uh in 2025, they're going to hire a lot more people because they're experiencing such an increase in demand for their service and they don't have the resources to fill that demand.
So, they don't have enough people to serve all of the demand that they're getting for their service. So, they need to hire more in order to be able to serve more customers. That was a little bit troubling for me. That was a little bit troubling for me. Not too much, but a little bit. Now, if I was evaluating a company uh whose valuation was like a price to earnings of like 15, I wouldn't even say that it's it's anything to even think about.
But Palanteer, let me remind you, is trading at a forward price to earnings of a whopping 241. It's more than 10 times as expensive as the average stock in the S&P 500. Almost 12 times as expensive. So, you're dealing with a business that's trading at a super duper premium valuation. If you're shopping for cars, this is like shopping for a Ferrari, Lamborghini, top of the top of the line, right?
You're looking at the best and the best of the best in terms of valuation. And when you're looking at that kind of a car, you want everything to be perfect, right? You're not if you're going to shop for that kind of a car and you see some things and scratches or some uh cheap materials used, you're going to you're going to be turned off and you're not going to want to buy it.
And that's the way I evaluate Palanteer because it's trading at such an expensive valuation. I'm extremely picky about the performance. Now the performance has been very very strong. It's been an excellent business that deserves this kind of a premium valuation. I would say this this this kind of a premium valuation but this is you know in my opinion this is overdoing it.
I think the valuation has gotten extreme here but Palunteer is the type of a business that deserves a premium valuation. Right. Uh, an example, and I know you're going to get on me for beating up on Tesla again, but Tesla is another example of a stock that's trading at a premium valuation, super premium valuation.
Tesla's forward price to earnings is like over 150. But Tesla's not a company that deserves that kind of premium valuation. Tesla's revenue has uh declined in the most recent quarter with operating income falling by over 40%. It's forecasting continued declines. The business is not in a good position.
It doesn't deserve that kind of premium valuation. But Palanteer does. Palanteer definitely deserves a premium valuation. Revenue growth is accelerating. Customer counts are increasing. Organic demand for its products are soaring. Contracts, new contracts are increasing. Everything is working well. Almost everything is working well for Palanteer.
Definitely deserves super premium valuation. But I would say this is too much. So I guess that will point to what I'm going to uh recommend here uh in terms of the answer to the question. But before I do that, let me share with you my proprietary valuation model. This valuation I got from fiscal.ai, which is my preferred data source.
There's a link in the description if you want their services. You'll get a discount for using my link. I also calculate a uh discounted cash flow valuation for almost every company that I'm following. And for Palunteer, I calculated a fair value for this business at $34. And this has been increasing, right?
uh to start the year I think my fair value calculation was around $20 and as the company has delivered better and better performance the intrinsic value has increased but the stock price has increased at a rate that's much faster than the increases that I've uh implemented in my valuation model. So whether I look at Palunteer on a forward price to earnings basis or if I look at it on my proprietary discounted cash flow basis, the stock looks overvalued.
Now we can argue just how much overvalued it is. uh I don't want to get into all those specifics because I don't want this to appear to be some kind of very specific uh precise calculation because there's uh as you might already be aware of when when I when you're making a discounted cash flow valuation there are several estimates and assumptions you're using to make that calculation.
So this shouldn't be interpreted as a precise measure of a company's value but just an overall measurement of uh what the business is worth compared to the current market price. And I apply a margin of safety so that I can comfortably feel confident in the conclusion of the output of my calculation.
Right? So, all that being said, do I think Palunteer stock, do I think you should be buying Palunteer stock before earnings? Uh, the answer is no. I think there is considerably more downside than there is upside heading into these earnings results. Meaning, if there should be something that's off about these quarterly earnings results, if they didn't sign enough contracts, if the remaining performance obligations weren't as strong, if the expense that was needed to serve these new customers were too high, uh if the company's not as optimistic about their future prospects for some reason or another, that could cause the share price to fall by 20 or 30% following the earnings release.
whereas I don't think there are that many catalysts that could lift the share price by anywhere near that magnitude given how stretched the valuation already is. So if you're interested in buying Palunteer stock, I would wait until after the earnings results and then evaluate and digest those figures and then make your decision following that releas.
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