Bill.com Shares Drop 18% Despite a Beat Across the Board; Analysts Explain Why By Investing.com

Shares of Bill.com (NYSE:) are down almost 18% in pre-open Friday despite the tech company reporting stronger-than-expected Q3 results and guidance.

Bill a Q3 adjusted loss per share of 8c, compared to a 2c loss per share in the year-ago period and an expected loss per share of 16c. Total revenue stood at $166.9 million, up from $59.7 million in the year-ago quarter and topping the consensus estimates of $158 million.

The company reported a total payment volume of $55.1 billion, up 57% YoY, just above the estimated $54.16 billion. The number of customers in the quarter stood at 146,600, beating the expected 139,813.

Looking ahead to Q4, Bill.com expects adjusted loss per share in the range of 13c to 14c, while analysts were expecting a 15c loss per share. Total revenue in Q4 is expected to range between $182.3 million to $183.3 million, ahead of the consensus projection of $170.5 million.

For the full fiscal year, BILL expects an adjusted loss per share in the range of 34c to 35c, compared to its previous guidance of a loss per share of 43c to a loss per share of 46c, while analysts were expecting a loss per share of 46c.

The software maker anticipates FY total revenue in the range of $624 million to $625 million, up from the previous forecast range of $597.0 million to $600.0 million, and compared to the analyst expectations of $599.8 million.

Goldman Sachs analyst Will Nance blames the after-hours drop on revenue growth deceleration as the organic core revenue grew 74% YoY vs 85% last quarter. The analyst remains “constructive and expects shares to return to outperformance as the company continues to execute.”

“We believe investors were focused on the sequential deceleration in organic revenue growth. In addition, based on our conversations, we believe investors had high expectations and were generally looking for a continuation of recent quarters where BILL beat by 8-10% on the top line on their traditionally very conservative guidance. While this quarter has generally been very unforgiving, fundamentally we came away very constructive, and we were particularly impressed with the acceleration of net adds in the quarter, and the particular strength in the FI channel,” Nance said in a client note.

Nance lowered the price target to $216.00 per share from the prior $320.00 to reflect lower multiples.

KeyBanc analyst Josh Beck also cut the price target to $225.00 per share from $250.00 on the Overweight-rated shares but noted BILL delivered “a solid beat.”

We “continue to recommend BILL as a core holding provided an expanding X-Sell (card, AR, etc.) opportunity set that we’d expect to become more material next FY as the go-to-market motion is energized following integration work this FY, untapped payments digitization (e.g., only LSD/MSD Virtual/x-border penetration), and expanding distribution channels (e.g., BoA win),” Beck wrote to clients.

By Senad Karaahmetovic