Even though Concur beat expectations with its Q1 financials, shares of the Bellevue-based travel expense company dipped on Wednesday by more than 10 percent.
But not to worry, says Jim Cramer.
The brash and bold-talking stock picker invited Concur CEO Steve Singh onto his CNBC show on Thursday and expressed optimism in the company’s value, despite the fact that shares are down more than 30 percent in the last three months.
“If the quarter you reported last night were reported five months ago, your stock would have been up 10 percent today,” Cramer told Singh right off the bat. “Is that something you even ponder?”
“Certainly I feel pain when my long-term shareholders are seeing declines in their values,” Singh responded. “But, you know, we build businesses over a long period of time. Think about this: 11 years ago we were worth $8 million in total value. Today, we’re worth many billions of dollars. That’s all driven by the fact that we’re delivering great value to customers and customers are buying our services.”
Founded in 1993, Concur helps businesses better track travel and entertainment expenses with its cloud-base software. The company has added 2,500 new customers in the past two quarters and reported revenue of $169.5 million for the period ending March 31, beating Wall Street’s expectations.
Cramer noted how Concur has few competitors, saying that companies like IBM, Oracle and SAP have not challenged Concur.
“The reality is, the market is actually coalescing around Concur and we’re becoming ubiquitous,” Singh said. “We’re becoming the default solution. There isn’t a lot of competition, but there is competition. We’re driven by how you drag incredible value for the business traveler — if you do that, the reality is both the customers and suppliers and even the competition starts to coalesce around you.”
Singh also noted new products that will be announced at the company’s Fusion conference next week, which will also feature new information on what Concur is doing with partners, and even competitors.
“Why would you talk about the other guys?” Cramer wondered.
“Part of being a great open platform is to be able to allow everyone to innovate on top of that platform,” Singh said. “When you do that, every one of the business travelers benefits from it.”
Cramer, who recently visited Seattle, ended the segment with some advice for investors.
“No one is shooting at these guys because they own the market,” he said of Concur. “One day things will change and they’re going to go back to being a profitable company that dominates not the niche, but the big category.”
