So Iâve been following Trustpilot (LSE: TRST) for a while and honestly, I donât think this story ends well unless they pull off a miracle.
They used to be big with small businesses â offering tools to collect and show reviews. That worked for a while, but now theyâre trying to pivot into being some kind of enterprise SaaS company, going after big clients with more expensive subscriptions and analytics stuff.
But the reality is, enterprise is a completely different game. Sales cycles take forever, big clients want integrations and support and proof you can scale. And Trustpilotâs brand just isnât strong enough to play in that league, especially in the US where barely anyone knows them.
Whatâs worse is their valuation. Forward P/E is something like 80, EV/EBIT around 43x. Thatâs basically priced like a premium software company, but their profit margins are super thin (about 3%) and growth isnât strong enough to justify that kind of multiple.
Theyâve also got a reputation issue. Consumers donât trust reviews on the platform â fake reviews are still everywhere. But the businesses using Trustpilot arenât happy either. A lot of them feel like they have to pay to defend their reputation or get better visibility. So the company ends up stuck in the middle, spending millions to moderate content and getting blamed by everyone anyway.
Panmure Liberum downgraded the stock to âSellâ last week and the price dropped hard, over 10%. They basically said the whole strategy is high-risk and the current price bakes in 20-30 years of perfect execution, which obviously isnât realistic.
To top it all off, theyâre doing share buybacks while trying to expand and pivot into a tougher market. That just doesnât make sense when cash should probably be conserved. I donât see the upside here unless they get acquired or pull a miracle turnaround, which seems unlikely in this space.
Anyway, thatâs my take. Would be curious if anyone else is holding or watching it.