ELF review (warning: valuation discussed)

Taken from Chit-Chat Money show notes:
"If we assume 40% revenue growth and an operating margin of 25%, P/OI looks like:

41 this FY

29 in FY 2025

21 in FY 2026

So, if we assume major operating leverage and strong revenue growth, ELF Beauty will be trading at a market multiple in two years. This assumes the market capitalization is unchanged.

If we assume revenue growth slows to 20% and operating margin stays at 15% (not a crazy scenario!), P/OI looks like:

68 this FY

56.6 in FY 2025

47.2 in FY 2026

Would ELF really be trading at 47.2 in FY 2026? Any investor needs to be asking this."

A lot of ELF’s success is attributed to its marketing strategy; last quarter NonGAAP SG&A expenses increased to 54.4% of revenue’s (up from 45.4% of revenues in Q2!) – so clearly they are investing a lot in marketing to stay ahead (as expected) and they will need to continue to spend on SG&A as they now try to expand internationally. Clearly they will not keep growing at 85%, and considering their high SG&A spending (which is not going to come down anytime soon), I think there is a reasonable possibility that Operating Income margin does increase much over the next 2 years.

(I don’t own ELF)

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