Christmas has come early for the bank’s shareholders with the decision to slightly increase the 2024 dividend – despite a single-digit decline in the net profit and cash earnings.
Beating the market benchmark is never easy, with 72 per cent of Australian actively managed global equity general funds trailing the S&P World Index in the six months to June 30, 2024. Domestic equity funds performed slightly better, albeit against a significantly lower bar set by the S&P/ASX 200 Index.
Tesserent becomes Australia’s largest cyber-security company
The Federal Government announced a push to target cybercrime with $748 million to be spent in new initiatives and an expanded security workforce. The announcement came following a targeted cyber-attack on all levels of Government, industry, political organisations, education, health, essential service providers, and operators of other critical infrastructure. The cyber threat was from a sophisticated state-based cyber actor, possibly artificial intelligence, due to the scale and nature of the targeting and the methods used. The attack has forced the Federal Government to rethink its cybersecurity measures and allocate resources from the Department of Defense portfolio.
Enter Tesserent (TNT:ASX) – The company is a pure-play cybersecurity ASX listed stock that has suddenly found itself in the right place at a very opportune time. Tesserent primarily provides its clients with security services such as firewall protection, authentication, anti-virus, anti-malware/spyware, intrusion detection, and security event management. And it has been a positive year for the company going by its recent business update. TNT said its revenue for the June quarter was an annualised $40m. The company has renewed its $15m loan facility with a lower interest rate to add to it. Tesserent said the funds would be used to fund “earnings-accretive acquisitions.” There are three already in the pipeline.
Its recent acquisition of Seer Security’s Melbourne and Canberra offices has given it access to a portfolio of Federal Government cybersecurity clients such as Defense and Law Enforcement. It’s also made Tesserent, Australia’s largest cybersecurity firm. The deal transforms the firm into Australia’s leading cybersecurity company into a high-security firm.
CEO Geoff Lord said, “we are delighted to welcome Seer Security to the group, particularly in light of the $1.35 billion Cyber Enhanced Situational Awareness and Response (CESAR) package to combat foreign cyber threats to Australian sovereignty, recently announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.”
Australia’s cybersecurity market is still in its infancy and needs to improve at a rapid rate to prevent attacks that can cause widespread damage. The Federal Government’s CESAR budget marks the country’s largest-ever investment in cybersecurity and will help the sector grow. According to a study conducted by Cisco, 81% of Australian companies face more than 5,000 threats daily, whilst 33% receive between 100,000 to 150,000 threats per day. Being the leading cybersecurity firm in the country, Tesserent is in pole position to win contracts and take on a work pipeline.
All in all, Tesserent is the leading pure-play Aussie cybersecurity stock that is not only backed by the Government but is in the right space. If current market conditions continue, there is a tremendous opportunity for investors to capture exponential growth for a company that is just in its infancy.
