Laybuy to cut costs and focus on profitability

Gary Rohloff, managing director of Laybuy. Photo / Jason Oxenham.

Kiwi buy now, pay later operator Laybuy says it will cut costs and focus on profitability as it searches for a new investor.

Yesterday the firm, which has its head office on Auckland's North Shore but is listed on the ASX, released unaudited financial statements revealing an after-tax loss of $10.3 million.

Laybuy said its financials were still in the process of being audited and had been partly held up by discussions with potential new investors.

In April the company hired corporate finance advisers Nor Capital to "explore various strategic alternatives available", including advising and facilitating discussions with potential investors and partners.

The unaudited statements show its revenue rose by 45 per cent to $47.1m in the March year but its total expenses also blew out from $64.7m to $92.6m after a big jump in its consumer receivable impairment expenses.

Managing director Gary Rohloff said its Australian and New Zealand sales operations were profitable excluding its corporate overheads and it was aiming to achieve profitability across the business by focusing on areas which delivered the greatest returns.

"We have embarked on a pathway to profitability with a focus on ensuring quality and sustainable growth, reducing costs and improving efficiencies."

The accounts show its Australasian business made a profit before tax of just $131,000 while its UK business made a $23.64m before tax loss and its head office added a further $28m in costs, blowing out its before-tax losses to $51.5m.

The company has been growing quickly with the number of active customers up 23 per cent to 931,000 and active merchants up 50 per cent to 13,700.

Its gross merchant value (GMV) rose 47 per cent to $868m.

Rohloff said its growth had continued to accelerate in the UK, which was now its largest market with GMV of $501m.

But the growth has come at a big cost. Merchant and marketing expenses rose 46 per cent from $12.2m to $17.85m while its employment expenses were also up, rising 43 per cent to $14.8m.

The company also saw its impairment expenses more than double from $15.1m to $30.8m.

At the same time its net transaction margin fell from 1.8 per cent to 0.6 per cent.

The company put this largely down to higher fraud experienced in the December quarter but said there had been significant improvement since March 2022.

Laybuy had an initial public offer price of A$1.41 when it listed in September 2020 and its shares soared as shoppers turned to online payments under pandemic lockdown conditions.

But they fell sharply in 2021 amid a broad sell-off of buy now, pay later stocks. Today the shares were trading around A7.4 cents.