Altus Group Limited is a Canadian commercial real estate services and software company, based in Toronto, Ontario. The company claims that 46 out of the top 50 commercial real estate owners use one of its products. It is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, with a market capitalization of around $1 billion as of 2017. The company has annual revenue of $475 million, 2,500 employees, and 75 offices.
History
Altus Group was founded in 2005, through the merger of three Canadian real estate consultancies, one of which was led by its first CEO, Gary Yeoman. Yeoman had previously managed the real estate portfolio of car parts manufacturer Magna Inc. Altus listed on the TorontoStock Exchange as an income trust in that year. It originally focused on consulting services for the commercial real estate industry. In 2006, it expanded into the oil-and-gas land surveying industry in Western Canada, through the acquisition of All West surveys for $51.5 million. In its first five years, the company expanded significantly, primarily through acquisition. It purchased a number of American tax consultancies in the aftermath of the Great Recession. In 2010, it converted to a standard corporation, due to the change in tax treatment of income trusts. In 2011, the company purchased Argus Software, a real estate software company, for $130 million. The purchase was part of an attempted expansion into the software industry. However, the company incurred significant debt to finance the acquisition, and reduced its dividend by 50%. As a result, the firm's share price fell by 80% in 2011, and the Mr. Yeoman, the CEO, resigned in November 2011. In 2012, the current CEO, Robert Courteau, joined the company. In 2014, it acquired Realnet, a real estate data firm, as part of an attempted expansion by the company into residential real estate services. In 2017, it acquired Australian real estate valuation software company EstateMaster. In July 2019, Altus acquired One11 Advisors, a real estate software consulting services firm.
Business
The company has three business segments: Altus Analytics, Commercial Real Estate Consulting, and Geomatics. Altus Analytics primarily provides software and data for commercial and residential real estate companies. Its commercial real estate consulting is primarily focused on property tax and valuation advice; the company has 60% of the Canadian market in property tax consulting, is the second largest company in that market in the United Kingdom, and third largest in the United States. Geomatics is principally focused on land surveys for the oil-and-gas industry. As of 2017, Altus had total revenue of $478 million, 35% from Altus Analytics, 55% from commercial real estate consulting, and other 10% from Geomatics. 45% of their revenue was from Canada, 38% was from the United States, 11% was from Europe, and the other 6% was from the Asia-Pacific. Significant competitors of Altus include Ryan LLC, CoStar Group, and CoreLogic.
Revenue
In May 2020, Altus Group Limited fell short of the target which resulted in a loss of CA$0.10. Following the latest earnings results, eight analysts tracking Altus Group settled on revenues of CA$542.6m in 2020, suggesting a significant sales drop of 6.7% relative to the last 12 months. Proceeds per share are forecast to grow to CA$0.61 by 23%.
