# Accesso Technology strengthens platform with Adyen deal as buyback signals confidence (LON:ACSO)

- Link: https://www.directorstalkinterviews.com/accesso-technology-strengthens-platform-with-adyen-deal-as-buyback-signals-confidence-lonacso/4121245438
- Published: 2026-03-09T10:08:00+00:00
- Author: Amilia Stone

**Accesso Technology Group plc (LON:ACSO) **is the topic of conversation when **
Hardman & Co**’s Analyst Richard Jeans caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive
interview.

**Q1: You just published a report on the company titled ‘New Payment Strategy Unveiled’
but before we talk about that, can you just remind us on what Accesso Technology
Group does?**

**A1**: Accesso is a specialist vertical software company that provides mission 
critical technology to the leisure industry; that’s attractions, cultural venues,
and live entertainment operators worldwide. Its solutions are designed to optimise
the end-to-end guest journey, and they ultimately enable venues to increase revenue.
Accesso serves more than 1,100 venues across 33 countries.

It combines data-driven software with deep operational expertise, and many of its
staff have worked directly in the attractions industry. This domain knowledge underpins
its focus on increasing onsite and offsite spending, improving capacity utilisation,
and helping clients to make better commercial marketing decisions.

**Q2: What were the key highlights in your report?**

**A2**: Accesso has selected Adyen as its global, white-labelled payments platform,
that was the key focus. This partnership enables embedded payments across its product
suite and positions the group to increase wallet share.

This positive development comes alongside a challenging theme park industry backdrop,
which has put particular pressure on the group’s virtual queuing business. While
Six Flags has extended its virtual queuing contract with Accesso for a further year,
another major customer has exited virtual queuing.

Nevertheless, management has realigned the cost base, and the current year guidance
remains in line. Capital allocation is supportive, with a proposed £14.5 million
tender offer at 300p. That would retire around 12.7% of the share base, and with
the cost being broadly equivalent to the expected cash EBITDA for the current year.
Despite these positives, the shares trade on a single-digit earnings multiple.

**Q3: What can you tell me about the implications of the recent trading updates?**

**A3**: The Accesso January trading updates highlighted near-term customer changes
in virtual queuing but also underlined the resilience and strategic importance of
the product. Notably, Six Flags elected to continue using Accesso’s solution for
a further year, having previously decided not to continue with this product.

So in our view, this reflects the virtual queuing solution’s market-leading capabilities,
patent protection, and the difficulty of replacement for a mission-critical revenue-
optimising system.

In addition, the group guided last year’s revenue slightly ahead of expectations
at around $155 million, with cash EBITDA margins approaching 15%, demonstrating 
improving operational leverage and discipline and cost management, despite the challenging
demand backdrop for theme parks.

Management also reported strong commercial momentum entering into the current year,
driven by better execution and solid performance of Freedom. Freedom is the group’s
food and beverage and retail point of sale product, and also Paradox, which is the
ski solution focused on the North American ski resorts industry. There has been 
swift cost-based realignment also to protect profitability.

**Q4: Just going back to Adyen, then. Why is that partnership so important?**

**A4**: The Adyen partnership is important because it meaningfully deepens the group’s
role in the customer value chain. By embedding white-labelled payments across its
products, Accesso can capture a larger share of the transaction value it already
facilitates, strengthening monetisation without increasing balance sheet or regulatory
risk.

Adyen’s global unified payments infrastructure also enhances the group’s proposition
to large multi-site venues by reducing complexity, improving authorisation rates,
and lowering total costs, which should support customer retention, increase switching
costs, and reinforce Accesso’s competitive position as venues increasingly favour
integrated end-to-end technology platforms.

**Q5: Why is the company buying back so many shares at the moment?**

**A5**: The group’s decision to buy back such a large proportion of its shares reflects
a combination of balance sheet capacity, value judgement, and capital allocation
priorities. Having generated strong cash flows and exited 2025 with a robust financial
position, the group has surplus capital beyond its near-term operational and investment
needs.

Management is signalling that at around 300p it views the shares as materially undervalued
relative to the long-term earnings and cash generation potential of the business.
That makes buybacks an attractive use of capital versus the alternatives.

**Q6: Just turning to AI, how should investors look at or price in AI disruption
risks?**

**A6**: We would be wary about being overly cautious. Accesso is a vertical specialist
while we think AI risk is higher among horizontal SaaS peers. Accesso’s moat is 
rooted in domain-specific operational expertise, long-standing customer relationships,
and software that directly underpins revenue generation for venues. These characteristics
raise switching costs and limit the scope for AI native entrants to disintermediate
incumbents quickly.

**Q7: Now, your report, you’ve updated your new forecasts. Can you just give us 
an update on those new forecasts?**

**A7**: We moved our 2025 revenue and cash EBITDA forecasts higher in line with 
the small beat outlined in the scheduled update in late January. So, in light of
the two updates in January, the early January one, the late January one, we cut 
our revenue forecast this year and next year. We also forecast $1 million of cash-
based restructuring costs in the current year. After taking into account the cost
reductions from these restructurings, our cash EBITDA forecasts fall by 3.3% this
year and 6.7% next year.

Nevertheless, our 2027 earnings per share forecasts have moved higher by 8% as a
result of the reduced share count due to the buybacks. So, our forecast net cash
position for the end of the current year comes back by $22 million. That’s after
taking into account the $20 million tender offer, as well as the $1 million restructuring
charges.

**Q8: Just to finish up, how would you describe the company in terms of an investment
case?**

**A8**: The stock trades on around 8.5 times earnings for 2027. The group has a 
strong net cash position, healthy cash generation, and FY27 free cash flow yield
is around 11%.

Further, the quality of the business has been improving; 85% repeatable revenues,
along with improving operating margins on our forecast. The stock trades at a significant
discount to its peer group, which we believe is unwarranted.

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