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Sohn: Aravt Global’s Liow picks GitLab for sharp growth

Richard Henderson
AFR
 • 
Dec 3, 2021

Yen Liow, founder and portfolio manager of Aravt Global, has a bullish take on Nasdaq-listed software development company GitLab, which he expects to soar in the coming years.

Liow, who hails from Melbourne and runs his New York hedge fund from midtown Manhattan, says GitLab is in a duopoly with Microsoft’s GitHub for the fast-growing “dev-ops” industry within software development.

“Dev-ops is highly complex. There is no single platform that allows developers to go through this entire process without using different sources of software,” he says.

“We believe GitLab is uniquely positioned to solve that problem. They’re investing aggressively throughout the entire dev-ops cycle.”

To increase the share price tenfold, the business will have to expand revenues from $US230 million to $US10 billion, which Liow says is possible if the company expands its user base and increases pricing.

He likens the stock pick to investing in Atlassian early in its development two decades ago and says GitLab will also benefit from a re-rating of its multiple, which trades at 23 times forecast 2023 earnings.

“We believe the dev-ops market is one of the best markets within software. Atlassian has created a $US100 billion business focused on one core part of the dev-ops stack – the plan phase,” he says.

“GitLab focuses on all parts with leadership in two and is highly competitive in a third.”


This article was originally posted by The AFR here.

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