I may be a month early with talking about Christmas presents, but Amaya Inc. (TSX:AYA)(NASDAQ:AYA) is an early Christmas present that I believe investors should grab, unwrap, and enjoy for years to come. The reason I believe this is because shares are down approximately 30% from a month ago, making this stock look like a real steal.
Many traditional investors might disagree with this, but I believe Amaya might be one of Canada’s top growth stocks over the next five years. Before we get into why I believe this is the case, let’s look at what has happened.
Currency hurt Amaya
While Amaya is a Canadian company, it reports its results in U.S. dollars. Even more frustrating, it derives the majority of its revenue in euros. When you look at how much stronger the U.S. dollar has gotten compared to the euro, it’s easy to see why the company appears to be hurting. Converting euros back to dollars made the quarter look weak.
On top of that, the company has US$2.3 billion in debt, which is also denominated in U.S. dollars. When your dollar is getting weaker due to inflation, debt that you have today becomes cheaper as the years go on. For Amaya, the dollar is getting stronger, which makes the debt even more expensive. Investors are worried that if the dollar continues to get stronger, it could hurt Amaya even more.
One thing about this that should concern investors is that Amaya has talked about issuing US$3 billion in common shares within 25 months. This would help the company pays down its debt entirely, but it would significantly dilute current investors.
Growth is incredible
Despite currency concerns and the fact that investors may experience an episode of dilution (which has not been confirmed yet), I still think that the incredible growth that the company will experience over the coming years far outweighs that negativity. The reason that I think this is because Amaya controls the online poker market. With its two brands, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, it owns 70% of the online poker market.
Moving on to casino games (slots, etc.), we see that Amaya is growing its revenue in this category aggressively. In Q3 2014, it generated US$3 million from this division. It did US$36 million in revenue in its most recent quarter. That’s growth that I can get behind.
But it doesn’t stop there. Amaya is also investing heavily in sports. One initiative is its daily fantasy sports business. Amaya runs the fifth-largest operation. In essence, customers build their perfect team for one day and the winners get money.
The other initiative in sports is online sports betting. The company expects that this will launch in 2016. The online sports gambling business could be huge. For perspective, consider that in 2011 it was estimated that $12 billion was gambled on March Madness. Of that, $9 billion was gambled in illegitimate ways (bookies). Amaya would offer a safe and legitimate way for people to bet on games.
There’s no denying that things could remain tough for the company, especially with currency problems. Further, a dilution event would hurt investors in the short term. However, the amount of growth this stock could experience far outweighs any of that negativity. Investors should buy.
