MONTREAL — Lightspeed gave investors more details about its path to profitability as it reported results for its 2022 fiscal year on Thursday. The upshot: the payments and point-of-sale company expects to break even on an adjusted basis in its 2024 fiscal year, the first time it has given a timeframe for reaching that milestone.

Its shares opened higher as the company reported revenue and adjusted net loss per share of US$146.6 million and US$0.15, respectively.

On the company’s earnings call, CEO JP Chauvet expressed relief over the end of pandemic lockdowns that had a huge impact on brick-and-mortar retail—the core of Lightspeed’s business. Its revenue increased 78 per cent year over year thanks to the easing public-health restrictions and the resurgence of in-person commerce. But its stock is still far from recovering its losses since last fall, when disappointing guidance and a report from U.S. short seller Spruce Point last September cratered its price.

Looking ahead to its 2023 fiscal year, Lightspeed predicted revenue between US$740 million and US$760 million and adjusted EBITDA loss of roughly US$35 million to US$40 million. On the company’s earnings call, Chauvet sounded confident that for its customers, the worst is over. “Any kind of recession is nothing compared to what our merchants have seen through the times of COVID,” Chauvet told analysts. 

In an interview with The Logic later Thursday morning, Chauvet picked out the three key things that he’s relying on to bring the company to break-even:

• Payments growth: Lightspeed is now offering its payments product in all of its markets, compared with mainly North America at the start of the fiscal year. On top of that, new merchants signing up with Lightspeed are adopting payments at a higher rate, Chauvet said. 
• Product integrations: After a spree of acquisitions since going public, Lightspeed has been rolling out new products that integrate the various features of the newly purchased companies. This month, it launched Lightspeed Retail, its new flagship retail product, and in October it rolled out a new integrated product specifically for restaurants. 
• Supplier network: The company will have more announcements to share on its long-awaited Lightspeed supplier network this quarter, Chauvet said. The launch of that new product will give its merchants an online platform to order merchandise directly from their suppliers and provide Lightspeed with another source of revenue. 

Despite the industry headwinds, Chauvet has said Lightspeed isn’t considering layoffs to cut costs, and he emphasized on the call that its cash holdings—it has nearly US$1 billion on its balance sheet—puts it in a strong position going into a more difficult environment. Despite its cash holdings and poor stock performance this year, Chauvet wouldn’t say whether the company is considering stock buybacks to boost performance for shareholders, adding that the company needs the capital to execute its strategy. Asked if the stock drop had prompted interest from buyers, Chauvet said Lightspeed has always received acquisition offers but doesn’t intend to sell.

Questions about Lightspeed’s transparency with investors have weighed on its stock since Spruce Point’s report criticized its disclosures. In the most recent quarter, Lightspeed’s longtime CFO, Brandon Nussey, was replaced by Asha Bakshani, with Nussey moving over to lead operations. Weeks prior to the move, the SEC had sent the company a letter asking it to clarify certain aspects of its investor disclosures; Lightspeed eventually revised certain parts of its disclosures in response.

Chauvet said he couldn’t comment on external matters but said Nussey’s move was planned in advance. “Brandon’s the right person to drive the business forward in terms of running the operations quickly,” he said. “He and I have been working together for a long time, and we’re good partners in this. So I think the right people at the right spots is how you grow this company.”