Shares in software-as-a-service business Aconex Ltd (ASX: ACX) climbed 4.8% to $6.33 today on a day when the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AJXO) (ASX: XJO) fell 1.7%.
This hot stock has tripled in value over the course of the past year and climbed around 20% since mid-March when the company announced the $96 million acquisition of European rival Conject GmbH.
The acquisition will enlarge the construction services business's global footprint and The Australian Financial Review has reported that analysts from Citi have a $6.43 price target on the shares.
The company raised a total of $120 million from investors to help fund the acquisition and believes it will be accretive to earnings per share in financial year 2017.
Aconex says it already has more than 60,000 organisations using its services and the additional scale is important as the more inter-connected construction businesses it has using its services the more of a network effect or competitive advantage it can build up.
It now has a market value around $1.156 billion, which is high considering its most recent half-year profit from core operations was just $5.3 million on revenues of $55 million.
Despite the potential of the Conject acquisition the shares still look expensive on conventional valuation metrics and investors may be better off looking elsewhere for the Aconex of tomorrow not today.