r/valueinvesting
Dropbox: The Buyback You Forgot About
Author argues Dropbox is 33% undervalued with 16% 7-year IRR potential, citing stable paying users and new product monetization.
- Estimated to be 33% undervalued with a projected 16% IRR over the next 7 years.
- Paying user base has actually grown by 5 million over the last 5 years, contradicting market pessimism.
- New value-add products like Dash provide monetization upside, requiring only a 2% subscription rate to validate the thesis.
Thoughts on my drop box thesis? I estimate that it is 33% undervalued and can generate a 16% IRR over the next 7 years.
\- over 18 million paying users.
\- Priced as though the company is bleeding users when in fact they have increased by 5 million over the last 5 years (with a 200k reduction from their peak of 18.22 million - this looks to have stabilized).
\- If they are able to maintain their paying users by increasing value add with products like Dash, only a fraction of their base (2%) need to subscribe for my thesis to be correct.
would love to know what you think of the company and my analysis!
(numbers & charts to support my thesis found in my blog post).
I never forgot. Been buying in at around 20 and then selling around and usually just under 30
Nice!
Google Drive is Dropbox except better and cheaper. I don't see this company going anywhere, Google is going to eat them.
If this were true, they would have bled customers over the last 6 years. Not added 5 million.
900m cash flow and 300m goes to SBC??????? THIS IS NOT A GOOD INVESTMENT OMFG PLEASE
I am going to assume that you are new to reading financial statements as that is not how stock based compensation really works.
SBC is a non cash expense which is added back to operating cash flow. The real cost is share dilution, but as you can see last year that decreased by 15% and my thesis is reliant on those buybacks to continue (tapering down to mid single digits by FY32).
Some of the best investments come from the most boring businesses. I am not saying Dropbox is a company to hold large weights in, but based on my calculation of its intrinsic value, and dash as a low growth catalyst, it could make sense.
I am genuinely confused?? This company offers a finished product, nothing being developed, nothing new, nothing changing the market, it just exists, and there is NO DIVIDEND. So what are you investing in??? The market will never give this company a premium or a fair valuation because it’s dead money!! I am being dead serious remind me in 5/10/15/50 years I don’t care, your thesis is dead wrong and I am trying to help you put your money elsewhere because this investment is going nowhere
Genuine question this stock is pretty volatile but is essentially just flat since IPO, and all they is allow you to submit shit and send files right, I really don’t get it? Just qualitatively I don’t think this makes any sense why put money in it, I think the numbers trick you man just think logically
Think it's a no brainer to buy it at the current prices, and I personally think $DBX has a good future from a pure growth standpoint. It sits at the top end of my growth portfolio in terms of outstanding amount. All my extra funds goes into $DBX ever since for the past 4 years and it's like watching paint dry, but I think position sizing is key here. Been accumulating (not selling) with extra funds below $30. I think we'll eventually break above $30 and create a new base in the years to come. Because of that constant buy, my position is now sitting above six figures, lol (this comment will either age horribly or be a good pat on the back).
The philosophy though, it is definitely a classic value trap candidate that is currently testing whether it can evolve into a legitimate tech value play. Has insane free cash flow and a very low valuation but the core business faces systemic stagnation. Yes, the big elephant in the room is basically zero top line growth, but I think that's what is the double edge sword. The original competitive advantage could be pretty much be just vaporware and a nostalgic approach from existing and past users, but other side says user base is still growing... They also need to leverage its current product integration, though. Agree that DASH is particularly hard for even existing users to get on board, but if they somehow are able to do it it'll be great...
Buy This is pretty much another reason why I keep revisiting it because it forces the stock to go up. Love how management has the green light to buy back literally 15% of the entire company. This creates an ABSOLUTE floor for the stock price and drives up valuation multiples that makes it hard to create a bear case.
So it opens up for a few bull cases for me, a very strong bull case or just a normal bull case:
Scenario 1 is just retaining the optimized cash cow as the base bull play that I think most people are focusing on. People will treat DBX like a mature company. Think we could realistically hit $35-40. Investors want this to happen, and it's clear.
Scenario 2 is we go into tech value play eventually. It's possible w/ the new CEO. Would be a wildcard if they can utilize AI for small and medium biz's. Value trap idea vanishes and wall street recognizes Dropbox as an expanding AI enterprise tool. Price target could be $60+.
Think it's a no brainer to buy it at the current prices, and I personally think $DBX has a good future from a pure growth standpoint. It sits at the top end of my growth portfolio in terms of outstanding amount. All my extra funds goes into $DBX ever since for the past 4 years and it's like watching paint dry, but I think position sizing is key here. Been accumulating (not selling) with extra funds below $30. I think we'll eventually break above $30 and create a new base in the years to come. Because of that constant buy, my position is now sitting above six figures, lol (this comment will either age horribly or be a good pat on the back).
The philosophy though, it is definitely a classic value trap candidate that is currently testing whether it can evolve into a legitimate tech value play. Has insane free cash flow and a very low valuation but the core business faces systemic stagnation. Yes, the big elephant in the room is basically zero top line growth, but I think that's what is the double edge sword. The original competitive advantage could be pretty much be just vaporware and a nostalgic approach from existing and past users, but other side says user base is still growing... They also need to leverage its current product integration, though. DASH is particulary hard for even existing users to get on board, but if they somehow are able to do it... And ironically since it's not a dividend stock, they better use all that cash to buy back their own stock. This is pretty much another reason why I keep revisiting it because it forces the stock to go up.
Think $DBX has a good future from a pure growth standpoint and sits at the top end of my growth portfolio that also has my dividends rolling in. All my extra funds goes into $DBX ever since. Been accumulating (not selling) with extra funds below $30. I think we'll eventually break above that and create a new base in the years to come.
2025 cash from ops: 951m
sbc: 300m
cash from ops - sbc = 951 - 300 = 651m cash available to shareholders
market cap: 5.6b
$DBX is less than 10x fcf.
it's a mature company but it's not zero growth forever, it is tied to the tech capital cycle particularly VC capital cycle because it's more for smaller businesses. most tech capital is going towards hardware/ai type shit rn. next software cycle it should grow a bit, but certainly it's a mature company now. at <10x fcf though...
You’re forgetting Capex and capitalized intangibles, but yes the result is mostly the same, 10-11x FCF yield. Which is entirely fair value for a company who is not growing its earnings in a 4-4.5% 10yr yield environment. What is your target price / multiple?
The comment that they won’t be zero growth forever is where you’re mistaken - they’ve been zero growth or even negative growth for some time now; I do not see a catalyst for that to change and if anything they run the risk of declining because they have much larger competitors with deeper budgets innovating around them.
True. And yes they could be zero growth forever. I will say that I like Dropbox as a small position in a growth portfolio (ironically / since they don't pay a dividend), and so my sizing is small because I have a very long time horizon and in that context, I prefer companies with much stronger moats/TAMs.
But, I still think Dropbox at this valuation is very high EV for another market cycle/decade (and hopefully even multiple). I don't have a target multiple, but if I'm right that they have enough marketshare / brand cache in a pretty simple niche to stay relevant, then they will have a lot of time to buy back shares. And IME, share eaters can be deceptively good investments when you buy them at these really low multiples (and sure, it could drop another 50% from here), and just hold them for much longer than seems realistic.
They've had bigger competitors with unimaginable budgets their entire lifetime, and they still grew a great business. Not everything is winner take-all, but maybe eventually it will be. I just think it's good risk-reward. You CAN replace/switch from Dropbox but as far as software subscriptions go, it is one that's hard to just cancel without some effort too.
At minimum, it’s an interesting thesis but returns are never a guarantee. They still have to execute. I personally believe they will be able to, but there is risk tied to everything.
However, I would rather take this risk than the over valuation risk that most of the market is piling into every day 🤷♂️