Host: Reese Tisdale | Analyst | Bluefield Research
Category: 🔬 Research
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[1:05] “There have been 301 deals in water that have been recorded so far this year, which [is] still a little shy of last year’s 368 transactions we counted. But if the ongoing trends in private water, like investment in utilities and the digital sector keep pace with what they have done historically […] over the last couple quarters if not years, then we're definitely going to be past 368 by the end of the year pretty quickly. My take is that it's been crazy busy around here with not only private equity reaching out and expressing interest in a number of different companies and firms, but also strategics as well, trying to figure out where can they get in, how can they get in or just even specifically targeting a company.”
[9:24] “The O&M market […] is about $2.6 billion annually. So it's not that big of a number […] given where the state of the world is and […] how complicated things are. So if you're a utility, or even industrial facility, an operator, there’re workforce constraints, there’re increased regulatory concerns and risks, whether it be for water quality or discharges. And […] things are just more complicated to manage. […] The state of the world is to outsource, […] so [for] utility operations […] it's no different. […] So I think the tailwinds are […] increasingly strong for companies in this space.”
[10:53] “[In] Q2 2021 numbers show a record revenue growth in the water industry. With 9 of the 45 [public] companies that Bluefield tracks, […] their year over year growth has shown to be up 25%. So it'll be interesting to see what happens in the public markets and how these companies are faring.”
[12:32] “Among [the] 940 [digital water] companies [that we track globally] 73% […] are privately owned and 90% are focused on municipal water management. 49% of those profile businesses have fewer than 50 employees. So we're talking about a lot of small companies out there. […] 52% of those identified vendors were founded since 2000 and over 30% are founded since 2010. That's really no surprise. […] The Internet of Things, digital, smart water, all of this smart tech stuff really all happened in many respects in this century. […] Lastly, almost 46% of the business […] provide digital solutions for utility, asset management or conveyance network operations. But meanwhile, data management analytics, cybersecurity, […] are the segments [that] have seen the fastest growth in terms of new companies formed.”
Rating: 💧💧
🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify
🕰️ 17 min | 🗓️ 11/09/2021
✅ Time saved: 15 min
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