Services

Why Oppenheimer Thinks Alibaba Is Now Back on the Right Track

Chris Lange

Published: July 7, 2016 11:40 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 5:59 am

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) is perhaps the largest online and mobile company in the world, as measured by gross merchandise volume (GMV), and as such it has a huge following. The company also just recently concluded its investor day, which had a few analysts growing more positive on the company.

For one, Oppenheimer reiterated an Outperform rating and raised its price target to $110 from $100.

In the brokerage firm’s first look, Oppenheimer focused on addressing major misunderstandings around the company that overhang the stock’s valuation. These include non-core investments, accounting quality and counterfeiting controversy. The firm also believes the AliCloud flywheel will trigger a revaluation of the company similar to Amazon in 2015, while Wall Street seems to be massively underestimating AliCloud’s growth potential.

As a result, Oppenheimer increased its fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018 revenue estimates by 5% and 7% on higher take-rate/AliCloud estimates. However, the firm reduced its net income estimates by 3% and 4%, on currency and YOKU/LAZADA consolidation. The sum-of-the-parts analysis suggests a $282 billion fair value for Alibaba, including $238 billion for marketplace/AliCloud and $44 billion for investments.

One of the key takeaways was that AliCloud was massively underestimated, in Oppenheimer’s view. China’s cloud industry is on the brink of massive growth, with AliCloud best positioned. In addition to AliCloud’s leadership in infrastructure, middleware/security/pricing are differentiators that should drive share gains globally. Oppenheimer expects Cloud revenue to grow 112% annually versus consensus estimates of 82%.

In its report, Oppenheimer detailed its investment as follows:

Alibaba has also been building up one of the most comprehensive business ecosystems in the world, covering a wide range of business offerings, which altogether create compelling network effects. Our positive thesis is based on the company’s unrivaled dominant position in its core business, its pioneer ecosystem that creates a long-standing barrier to entry, and numerous drivers, including enhancing monetization and solid GMV growth outlook, as well as new growth opportunities including cross-border e-commerce.

Shares of Alibaba were trading up about 0.4% at $78.92 on Thursday, with a consensus analyst price target of $96.37 and a 52-week trading range of $57.20 to $86.42.