Mind the Multiple Gap - Remain Underweight

Research evidence excerpt

Mind the Multiple Gap - Remain Underweight

IdeaM… but Tieto now screens at a premium to global peers: Given the sector sell-off,

Tieto now trades on 12x CY26e adj. P/E, a 30%/48% premium to sector bellwethers

Accenture and Capgemini, respectively. With investors expressing greater concern

around the risk AI poses to labour-driven IT services revenue models, and with Tech

Consulting still representing >40% of group revenue and ~33% of adj. EBITA (as of

FY25), we see the premium multiple as harder to justify. This business is exposed to

short-cycle, largely discretionary, time-and-materials based IT project work, and in

our view faces many of the same cyclical and structural pressures that have driven

the broader sector de-rating. We acknowledge that Tieto has a higher mix of

software/platform-oriented businesses elsewhere in the group, which provide a

degree of support to the equity story. However, all divisions are currently delivering

growth at a low ebb, and we see the company's mid-term targets and consensus as

too high. We also note Tieto's high market share in its home Nordic markets, which

likely limits its ability to grow faster than the broader market. In that context, Tieto's

valuation looks rich vs. larger global peers with greater scale, broader end-market/

geographic exposure, and higher capacity to invest behind AI-led growth

opportunities in services.

We see risk to short-term and mid-term numbers – remain Underweight: With

the IT services spending backdrop remaining constrained, and no clear signs of

inflection in discretionary short-cycle project work, we see downside risk to both

near-term growth expectations and the company’s medium-term targets. In the

short term, we cut our FY26 organic growth forecasts to reflect continued softness