The company's stock is up 30 percent this week.
Ahead of the long week, the S&P/TSX index was little changed.
The photo was taken by AARON Harris.
Lightspeed Commerce Inc., the Montreal-based maker of retail software, is getting back to normal.
The company's stock is up about 40 per cent over the past week or so, a sign of hope for a company that started to talk about itself as a rival to e-commerce powerhouse Shopify Inc.
Lightspeed reported on May 19 that revenue increased 78 per cent in the quarter ended March 31 from a year earlier, as the restaurants, independent retailers, golf clubs and other retail businesses that use Lightspeed's software were allowed to fully reopen.
The company said it was on track to break even by March 2024, despite the fact that it lost 77 cents per share in the most recent period. Lightspeed had never set out a timetable for profitability.
Jean Paul Chauvet said in an interview with the Financial Post that they are delivering on their promises. We are focusing on what we can control. A long-term company is what we are building. We want a company that creates value for a long time.
We are delivering on what we say we are going to do
Jean Paul Chauvet
Lightspeed's stock price was trading around $30 per share on the morning of May 20, an increase of 40 per cent since May 11, even as much of the recent news coming from global stock markets has been negative. Ahead of the long week, the S&P/TSX index was little changed, and Lightspeed was up only three per cent after crashing back to pre-pandemic levels earlier this month.
Lightspeed went public in Toronto in January of 2019: 14 years after Dax Dasilva started the company in an off-the-beaten-track corner of Montreal.
Lightspeed, which initially focused on point-of-sale software for restaurants and mom-and-pop retailers, was walloped by the lockdowns that followed the early waves of the Pandemic. The share price plummeted from a high of $13.50 in August to $13.50 on March 20, 2020, as many of its clients were forced to close.
When it became clear that vaccines would allow for a faster-than- expected reopening of economies, investors had a change of heart and the stock surged to $168.84 in September 2021, as traders got excited about digitally oriented growth companies.
The excitement has been replaced by concern over inflation. Lightspeed's shares were down 40 per cent from the start of the year as investors worried about runaway prices and the lengths to which central banks would go to get inflation.
Lightspeed was accused of inflating many of its performance metrics, a charge the company said was false. In February, the company announced that Dasilva was stepping down as CEO, creating additional uncertainty.
After executing a string of acquisitions as its stock price rose, Chauvet insisted the company was in a strong position.
Lightspeed's software platform is geared toward boosting efficiency by integrating online and in-store sales and inventory management, and Chauvet thinks a downturn might be good for the company.
Lightspeed does what our customers need to do. We help automate processes. We help them automate their work. It should be a strong drive towards companies like ours.
Email: kcarmichael@postmedia.com
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