Shares of Teladoc Health (TDOC 3.31%) have been crashing over the past few years. The company wrote down goodwill on some investments multiple times, leading to significant losses. There isn't nearly as much bullishness in this stock as there has been in the past.
But the market for telehealth is still growing, and Teladoc hasn't run out of growth opportunities by any means. At a significantly reduced valuation, is the stock a potential steal of a deal?
Why Teladoc could rebound this year
A big reason investors have been bearish on Teladoc Health is that the healthcare company has incurred some pretty significant losses over the past year. But that has been due in part to some sizable impairment charges, stemming back to its overpayment for Livongo Health, which it acquired in 2020.
Last year Teladoc reported a net loss of $13.7 billion -- that's more than five times the $2.4 billion in revenue it generated. It's a staggering loss, but it also wrote down its goodwill by $13.4 billion during the year (it had no write-downs in the previous year). If you take out all those write-downs, then the company's operating loss would have been around $250 million -- an improvement from the $266 million operating loss it reported in 2021.
Now with just $1.1 billion left in goodwill on its books, investors can be confident that if there are any further write-downs, they'll pale in comparison to what the company reported in 2022. Another positive is that Teladoc management projects revenue of around $2.6 billion for 2023, which would be an increase of 8% from the $2.4 billion it reported last year. And management doesn't expect its net loss per share to be worse than $1.75, which is nowhere near the $84.60 per-share loss it reported in 2022. It's even a decent improvement from the $2.73 net loss per share it reported in 2021.
Given a more favorable outlook and potentially minimal or no write-downs at all this year, Teladoc should make for a better investment at the current share price.
Many more growth opportunities are out there for Teladoc
Shares of Teladoc crashed over the past few years as the hype surrounding telehealth stocks as a whole faded. Part of that may have to do with investors seeing this as nothing but a pandemic stock. But there is still plenty of growth out there for Teladoc to tap into; it isn't just a stock that benefited from the pandemic. Analysts from Grand View Research project that the global telehealth market will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 24% through 2030.
Teladoc, being a leading telehealth provider, is one of the companies that should be able to benefit from that growth. And with millions of people potentially losing access to Medicaid as the public health emergency related to COVID-19 comes to an end, the company's telehealth visits may become a cost-efficient option for people who want an easy way to access more affordable healthcare (a general medical visit with Teladoc costs $75 for people without insurance).
Is Teladoc Health's stock a cheap buy?
Teladoc isn't profitable at the moment. But when looking in terms of revenue, an argument could be made that the stock is incredibly cheap. At less than 2 times sales, the stock is trading well below its five-year average:
TDOC PS Ratio data by YCharts
What's noteworthy is that the healthcare stock is trading at a lower premium than even before the pandemic, back when telehealth wasn't nearly as popular as it is today. For long-term investors, this could make for a solid buy, as Teladoc's beaten-down valuation could look like a steal in the future.
