Analysis: Vacasa Has a Growth Story Neatly Tailored to Wall Street Sensibilities
Photo Credit: Vacasa inherited the management contract for this Florida property when it acquired Wyndham Vacation Rentals. Vacasa hopes to keep adding properties through direct sales efforts. Wyndham Destinations
Skift Take
Vacasa is adding homes to manage in 2022 at half the pace of 2021 in the name of profitability. Without the big mergers and acquisitions of years past, Vacasa is pressuring its sales force to get more productive or hit the road.
Vacasa recorded a breakout second quarter, and vowed to increase its ranks of homes by 30 percent in 2022, mostly through good old-fashioned sales calls, as opposed to expensive mergers and acquisitions.
That hits a sweet spot for a Wall Street that wants to see scale — and profits along with it. Vacasa went public in a special purpose acquisition company merger in December when Wall Street tired of such public debuts where the red ink ran amok.
The property management company beat its own guidance on revenue and earnings for the quarter, and forecast that it would reach profitability, on an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) basis, in 2023.
Wall Street applauded Vacasa's second quarter financials and outlook, and its shares were up more than 31 percent to roughly $4.00 Thursday morning, a day after the earnings release.
Incidentally, Vacasa reversed a $20 million net loss in the second quarte
