Equity Research Report | 7/24/19
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EQUITY RESEARCH REPORT | 7/24/19 ARISTA NETWORKS INC. Recommendation: BUY (Ticker: ANET) Business Rating: 6 Security Rating: 6 Author: Janice Quek BUSINESS RATING SECURITY RATING SELL BUY NEGATIVE POSITIVE POTENTIAL FOR RETURN RISK LIMITED SIGNIFICANT LOW HIGH Industry: Communications Sector: Information Stock Price: $277.94 (7/24/19) Equipment Technology Jarvis Rank: 185 (Data as of 7/24/19 unless specified) Enterprise Value: $20.72 B Market Cap: $21.18B Sales: $2,567 M (FY19 E) Fwd (TTM) Fwd (TTM) 21.3 (49.4) Gross Margin 63.8 8.4 (9.65) EV/EBITDA: Price/Sales: 26.8 Fwd (TTM) ROA: 19.9 (11.8) Fwd (TTM) ROE: Fwd (TTM) P/E: 29.9 (60.5) (18.0) Fwd (TTM) ROIC: 26.8 (18.0) Dividend Yield: - There was no significant insider buying for ANET. WHY WE RATE ARISTA NETWORKS A BUY The benefits of cloud computing have encouraged more organizations to Grab-and-Go THESIS migrate or start their business in the cloud. Cloud computing, however, requires a network architecture redesign that is built for the cloud, which An investment in Arista is a play has created demand for new types of networking hardware and software. on demand for modern network infrastructure and equipment driven Arista, a developer of networking solutions, switches and routers for the by enterprise migration to the datacenter and campus, stands to benefit from this growth opportunity. cloud. Arista’s leading market Furthermore, Arista has the following attributes that would drive strong position and differentiated product portfolio will sustain its strong growth in the medium term: growth momentum and bring 1. It is one of the three vendors in the market, and is slowly opportunities for TAM expansion. gaining market share against current market leader Cisco Systems. 2. Arista’s products are differentiated in performance, scalability and versatility. Extensive experience serving high performance companies gives it credibility. 3. There is room for further TAM expansion as the company develops hardware for new verticals and other parts of the network. “Seeking Equity Returns 1 from High Yield Bonds” 0.94 EQUITY RESEARCH REPORT | 7/24/19 4. The company is a major player in the North America region, but there is much room for international expansion as it invests more in other regions. SUMMARY OF THE BUSINESS AND THE INDUSTRY Business Grab-and-Go TALKING POINTS What we like… What we don’t like… Arista Networks Inc is a leading Strong enterprise cloud Arista’s revenue performance supplier of cloud networking migration momentum is sensitive to the order rates of solutions that use software creating demand for high certain key customers. innovations to address the needs of performing networking Companies in its “Cloud large scale internet companies, cloud equipment and solutions. Titans” category can cause service providers and next-generation swings in growth results. data centers and campuses for Revenue can be “lumpy”. enterprise support. The company’s Wide and deep portfolio of solutions comprise its Extensible high quality products. Arista Operating System, or EOS, a set of has established a positive network applications and Ethernet reputation in the business. switching and routing platforms. Arista’s end customers span a range of Team is highly innovative, industries, and include large Internet launching new products for companies, financial services new sections of the market at a organizations, government agencies, fast pace. TAM expansion is media and entertainment companies. highly likely. Arista has performed above current industry metrics in a number of areas. Strong momentum in migration to the cloud The benefits of cloud computing have made it very attractive for companies to operate their businesses in the cloud. Many young companies start in the cloud, and migration to the cloud is well underway for many mid to large enterprises. Cloud computing, however, especially on a large scale with numerous connected devices, demands a different network architecture, one in which legacy designs are unable to cope efficiently. These legacy networks are limited in performance, and latency and energy use increases substantially as more applications and devices are added. Network outages are common and the economic “Seeking Stocks that can 2 Double in 2-3 Years” 0.94 EQUITY RESEARCH REPORT | 7/24/19 impact to companies costly when they occur. These traditional networks have attempted to evolve to address emerging cloud computing requirements, but fundamental structural deficiencies of the network architecture limit the ability of these networks to deliver the required performance consistently and reliably. Legacy networks are also not programmable, and difficult to integrate with third-party applications for network management. As a result, network developers have created entirely new architectures that are built for the scalability and high-speed performance of the cloud. Cloud service providers and companies that desire to have their own data centers for internal use, typically large organizations, will require a network platform built on these new network architectures, which is driving demand in data center network equipment, such as switches, routers and network management software. According to technology market research firm Gartner, public cloud services will grow in the mid to high teens in the next four years. The public cloud computing market is currently estimated at $178 billion, making the growth opportunity for the data center networking equipment market a large one with a fairly long runway. Market growth forecast for public cloud services worldwide from 2011 – 2022 (Source: Statista) Arista’s product design differentiation drives demand from high performance companies Arista’s networking solutions are built for the needs of the cloud, delivering scalability, availability, programmability, automation and visibility. Its products use multiple silicon architectures, which allows it to build more products optimized for different functions in the network compared to competitors that use fewer silicon architectures. As a result, Arista has been able to offer a deep and wide portfolio of hardware switches that support third-party automation tools – one of the company’s key strengths. Arista’s portfolio of hardware products is underpinned by its Extensible Operating System (EOS), a software that manages the performance of all of its routing and switching platforms for multiple use cases, unlike legacy vendors which require multiple management tools that add complexity and reduce stability. EOS is fully programmable and highly modular, and built with advanced capabilities such as workflow automation and predictive analytics that is industry leading. It is the versatility of its hardware and software that “Seeking Stocks that can 3 Double in 2-3 Years” 0.94 EQUITY RESEARCH REPORT | 7/24/19 enables Arista to add products to serve new verticals, expanding its total addressable market over the years. A recent Gartner report also praises Arista for having extensive experience in powering high-performance and large-scale networks such as cloud providers and financial services companies. This experience gives Arista further credibility in the high quality and performance of its products. Robust operational and financial growth metrics Arista has achieved a strong financial and operational performance since 2014, the year of its IPO. Revenue grew at a CAGR of 38.5% between FY2014 and FY2018. The company is GAAP net income profitable and continues to grow EPS steadily. Gross margin for Arista is comparable to its industry, and operating margins are the highest in its peer group. Arista’s operations have generated a positive free cash flow margin, in line with its industry, and sufficient to sustain its growth without having to take on more debt. In terms of operational metrics, Arista’s customers have grown from about 3,000 at the end of FY2014 to 5,500 at the end of FY2018, growing at an average rate of 16% each year. Average revenue per customer has also increased from $0.195 million to $0.391 million, more than doubling in the span of 4 years. Arista however encountered a speed bump in Q1 2019, when management announced weaker than projected revenue as two of its major customers decided to pull back on spending as they consolidated inventory. We assessed this to be a temporary occurrence rather than any indication of an industry spending slowdown. “Seeking Stocks that can 4 Double in 2-3 Years” 0.94 EQUITY RESEARCH REPORT | 7/24/19 Metric Industry1 Arista Gross Margin 65.1% 63.8% EBIT Margin (NTM) 20.4% 32.3% Free Cash Flow Margin 20.2% 20% LT Debt to Equity Ratio 55.1% 0% R&D Expenses as % of Sales 18.1% 20.6% ROE 17.3% 18% ROIC 15.8% 18% Outlook/Estimates The outlook for Arista is positive as enterprise cloud migration is well underway and demand for networking equipment is strong. The company has an array of switches to capture each stage of the refresh cycle, and is already ready for the next stage of the 400Gb Ethernet switch cycle when it ramps in 2020. Arista’s previous long court battle with Cisco for patent infringement has also concluded with Arista 1 Industry comprise key comparable companies Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and F5 Networks. “Seeking Stocks that can 5 Double in 2-3 Years” 0.94 EQUITY RESEARCH REPORT | 7/24/19 paying $400 million in compensation to Cisco. Hence this has lowered further costly legal exposures to investors. Arista has historically grown well above industry expansion rates, which is estimated at a growth rate of 10% in the medium term. Hence, in the next 3-5 years, Arista’s revenue is likely to grow at rates between 15-25%. Operating at greater scale, Arista’s profitability is also expected to improve, growing EPS and free cash flow for shareholders. In the nearer term, Arista’s revenue growth is projected to dip to the high teens, negatively impacted by the unexpected scale back in orders from its key customers in Q1.