If you were to make a list of companies set to outperform during the COVID-19 pandemic, DocuSign would be near the top of that list. The company offers an electronic signature solution that allows businesses to digitally prepare and execute agreements. In other words, you can sit at home and sign documents with the click of a button. How convenient!
And based on their recent earnings release, customers are more than happy to pay for DocuSign’s e-signature software. Revenue is up 45% from this time last year as more and more companies have opted to allow employees to work remotely. The company also plans to move into the video conferencing space with its acquisition of Liveoak Technologies, Inc. Makes sense given the success of Zoom Video Communications, Inc.
If you’re interested in DOCU stock, let’s compare the float on FloatChecker and then make our own calculation using the company’s publicly available financial statements. A search on FloatChecker tells us the float is between 155 million and 181 million shares:
Contents
- DocuSign Annual Report 10-K
- DocuSign Second Quarter Report 10-Q
- Conclusion
DocuSign Annual Report 10-K
DocuSign’s latest annual report was filed on March 27, 2020. On the front page the company provides an “aggregate market value of common stock held by non-affiliates” of $8.6 billion based on the July 31, 2019 closing price of $51.72. That amount represents the float value. Using simple division, we can determine a stock float of 166,279,969 shares ($8.6 billion / $51.72).
The annual report also contains the shares outstanding. As of February 28, 2020, those shares totaled 181,456,115. Later in the 10-K, however, outstanding shares are reported on the balance sheet as 181,254,000 for the year ending January 31, 2020. We’ll use the later number as we continue with our calculation using the most recent quarterly report.
DocuSign Second Quarter Report 10-Q
The company filed its second quarter 10-Q just before the Labor Day holiday on September 4, 2020. The condensed table on stockholder’s equity shows shares issued since the date of the 10-K, January, 31, 2020:
Let’s examine these shares further.
1,300,000 shares were exercised or purchased as part of stock option agreements. The benefit of stock options is that the holder gets the right to purchase the stock at a specific price, which will hopefully be lower than the current value of the stock when the options are exercised. For our purposes, we will add these shares to the float since they are available for trading on the open market once exercised.
Continuing through the table, the company settled 2,080,000 shares as part of restricted stock units (RSUs). Similar to stock options, RSUs are a way for companies to give shares to employees over a period of time. The stock remains restricted based on length of employment or some performance goal metric until they settle or vest and become available for trading.
256,000 shares were issued as part of DocuSign’s employee stock purchase plan. Many companies have such a program where employees can purchase stock at a discounted price, typically though payroll deductions. While many employees may choose to hold on to the stock for retirement purposes, the shares should be available for trading on the open market once purchased.
Finally, the company issued approximately 247,000 shares of stock related to the acquisition of the video conferencing platform Liveoak Technologies. We’ll assume those shares aren’t restricted in any way.
Adding these shares (which total 3,883,000) to the outstanding 181,254,000 shares from January 31, 2020 gives us a new total of 185,137,000 shares, as set out in the table above. We can also add these shares to the float since they are available for trading on the open market. Recall that we calculated 166,279,969 shares in the float based on the information in the 10-K. Adding 3,883,000 gives us an updated stock float total of 170,162,969 shares.
Conclusion
Our calculation of 170,162,969 shares in DocuSign’s float is similar to what we found by using FloatChecker. One possible reason for the difference is that the float value in the 10-K appears to be based on values from the company’s earlier second quarter ending July 31, 2019. It is likely the DocuSign issued additional shares between that time and the end of the year when the 10-K was prepared that we didn’t account for in this analysis.
