In the underfollowed world of ASX small caps, it’s rare to find a stock that combines deeply discounted valuation, tangible earnings visibility, and the potential for outsized upside. Pioneer Credit (ASX: PNC) is one such opportunity. Operating in the personal debt recovery space, this niche player is quietly rebuilding momentum, buoyed by strong sector tailwinds and a disciplined operational reset.
At TAMIM, we’ve long emphasised the value of small cap value stocks that combine real cash flow with misunderstood narratives. Pioneer Credit (ASX: PNC) fits squarely into this camp. With its stock trading well below its liquidation value and clear earnings growth on the horizon, it may be one of the more compelling ASX turnaround opportunities in 2025.
The Business Model: Focused and Understood
Pioneer Credit is a pure-play retail debt recovery business. Its model is simple: purchase portfolios of delinquent consumer debt (PDPs) at a discount and then collect repayments over time. Unlike some debt recovery stocks on the ASX that dabble in origination or lending, PNC stays firmly within its lane, collection.
It has a customer base of over 750,000 people, with 220,000 active accounts. Approximately half of the debt it manages comes from Australia’s major banks, and the other half from non-bank lenders, providing a diversified stream of accounts.
Since listing in 2014, Pioneer has delivered consistent net IRRs above 15% on its portfolios, suggesting a solid return framework, especially in an asset-light, cash-generating model.
Valuation Gap: A Deep Discount to Fundamentals
Despite its underlying profitability, Pioneer Credit trades on just 8.5x forecast FY25 earnings and 4x FY26 earnings, assuming the company achieves management guidance of $18 million NPAT by FY26. This implies a sub-$75 million market capitalisation for a business that could feasibly generate more than that in net present value over just a few years.
Perhaps more compelling, management has flagged that the company’s liquidation value sits between $200 million and $330 million. This disconnect, where Pioneer trades closer to its debt recovery value than its going concern value, creates a compelling investment case for patient holders of small cap value stocks in 2025.
The Turnaround Story: From Crisis to Clarity
Pioneer’s journey hasn’t been smooth. In 2019, corporate governance issues and a funding covenant breach led to a trading halt and a dramatic collapse in market value. The stock plummeted, and by April 2020, PNC was trading at just $0.10 per share.
Since then, the business has stabilised. Debt has been refinanced, most recently in July 2024, reducing interest costs by $8 million annually, and operational discipline has returned. Portfolio acquisitions are now selectively focused, and the business is on a clearer path to profitability.
The result is a company with lower financial risk and stronger operational footing. For investors focused on ASX turnaround opportunities, the transformation at PNC should not be overlooked.
Tailwinds in the Sector: Supply and Rationalisation
Debt recovery stocks on the ASX benefit from cyclical and structural dynamics. The supply of purchased debt portfolios (PDPs) is rising, $325 million in FY24 and expected to grow to $400 million in FY25. Banks and non-bank lenders alike are offloading bad debts at scale, seeking balance sheet relief.
At the same time, the industry is consolidating. With fewer active players and increased focus on return discipline, competition for PDPs is becoming more rational. This trend supports improved IRRs for those with proven collection infrastructure, like Pioneer Credit.
Litigation Optionality: A Material Catalyst
One potential near-term catalyst lies in PNC’s $32 million legal claim against PwC, stemming from legacy audit failures. The claim is set for resolution in Q1 FY26. If successful, it could unlock significant shareholder value, either via special dividends, debt reduction, or accelerated reinvestment in new PDPs.
This litigation represents real optionality, not often found in companies at this valuation level. It adds further upside to an already asymmetric risk-reward profile.
Management’s Long-Term Ambition
The leadership team at Pioneer Credit has outlined a bold target: growing NPAT to $50 million and achieving a $1 billion market cap in the next few years. While ambitious, the framework is grounded in tangible steps:
Scaling the PDP book via disciplined acquisitions (guidance: $90m in FY25);
Leveraging existing infrastructure to expand margins;
Monetising the broader customer database beyond collections.
This aspiration aligns with the criteria for small cap value stocks in 2025 that offer a genuine pathway to scale and sustained returns.
Risks: Pricing Reflects Known Challenges
Of course, no investment comes without risk. Pioneer carries debt, $290 million as of the latest update, and requires careful capital management. Regulatory risk is ever-present in the collections space. Execution of the FY25–26 turnaround hinges on sustained PDP purchasing discipline and portfolio performance.
Yet, at a $76 million market cap, these risks appear not only understood but heavily priced in. For investors seeking undervalued opportunities with high upside, Pioneer remains one of the more contrarian ASX turnaround opportunities available.
Tamim Takeaway: Real Cash Flow, Misunderstood Risk, Uncommon Value
Pioneer Credit (ASX: PNC) is the type of stock that rarely makes headlines, but quietly rewards patient investors. It combines a simple business model, a recovering balance sheet, strong insider alignment, and multiple paths to value creation.
Whether you’re seeking exposure to debt recovery stocks on the ASX, looking to add small cap value stocks in 2025, or searching for ASX turnaround opportunities, PNC demands closer inspection.
Actionable Insights for Investors:
Track August 2025 results to confirm earnings momentum.
Watch for developments in litigation that may unlock material capital.
Reassess valuation relative to earnings and liquidation benchmarks.
Position sizing is key, this is a high beta, high reward opportunity.
At Tamim, we continue to find opportunity in unloved, mispriced companies that quietly compound capital. Pioneer Credit (ASX: PNC) fits that thesis, with an added layer of litigation optionality and operating leverage. It may be time for investors to give this hidden gem another look.
Disclaimer:Pioneer Credit (ASX: PNC) is held in TAMIM Portfolios as at date of article publication. Holdings can change substantially at any given time. Source: Company ASX material, discussions with management, Tenva Capital Research
This week’s TAMIM Reading List takes you across the cosmos and back, exploring the evolution of intelligence in animals and the existential mystery of why our universe exists. We delve into Hollywood data to uncover how often lead characters bite the dust, while examining how America’s tipping culture spiralled out of control. On the tech frontier, AI is now printing rocket engines faster, cheaper, and smarter. Meanwhile, we also navigate the sticky political terrain in the U.S. and weigh Billy Slater’s bittersweet coaching dilemma for Origin. From science to sport, politics to pop culture, this list connects the dots across curiosity, progress, and challenge.
AI Tokens, Data Demand, and the Small Cap Opportunity
Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to research labs or theoretical discussions, it’s already reshaping global industries. At the core of this revolution are AI tokens, units of data that fuel the training and operation of AI models. In a recent report from Microsoft, it was revealed that over 100 trillion tokens were processed last quarter, with a record 50 trillion in April alone, a fivefold increase year-on-year.
This surge isn’t just about bytes and bandwidth. It’s about real commercial opportunity. As AI adoption explodes, companies that produce, process, and monetise data at scale are in high demand. While tech giants like Microsoft and Google dominate headlines, there is a growing cohort of AI-driven small-cap stocks on the ASX that are quietly positioning themselves to benefit from this tectonic shift.
In this piece, we spotlight three ASX-listed businesses, AI Media, Straker Translations, and Pure Profile, which we believe are well placed to ride the AI token boom. These are real, profitable companies with strong management, clear strategies, and untapped upside.
AI Media: Reinventing Captioning with a SaaS DNA
AI Media, once a traditional live captioning business, is undergoing a remarkable reinvention. Its mission: to transform into a scalable, SaaS-first AI media solutions provider. That pivot is already underway, with half of its current revenue now coming from technology-based products.
The company’s new AI-driven product suite, Lexi Captions, Lexi Voice, and Lexi Brew, is the engine of that transformation. Launched in April, Lexi Voice helps move the company away from hardware-based revenue toward recurring high-margin SaaS income.
AI Media commands an 80% market share in U.S. live broadcasting and is actively expanding into new verticals, courtrooms, classrooms, and lecture theatres, as well as geographies, particularly Europe and APAC. Management is aiming for $150 million in revenue by FY29, with Lexi products expected to drive 80% of that.
Strategic joint ventures, encoder acquisitions, and partnerships with global distribution networks could further accelerate growth. With a strong balance sheet and founder-led leadership, AI Media is one of the few AI-driven small-cap stocks in Australia with proven product-market fit and visible long-term growth levers.
Straker Translations: AI-Powered Language at Scale
Straker Translations, a New Zealand-based company with a 25-year legacy, is also undergoing its own evolution. Once a traditional services business, Straker is now focused on selling AI translation tools powered by its proprietary datasets. In the AI world, data is the currency, and Straker has plenty of it.
The company’s competitive edge lies in its ability to create and validate customer-specific AI language models. This is made possible through its crowd-sourced network of 100,000 freelancers and a highly valuable historical dataset built over decades. Straker’s Verify AI product adds an extra layer of transparency, offering both automated and human-validated outputs.
One of the most exciting near-term catalysts is its Swift Bridge AI initiative in Japan. With new government mandates requiring English-Japanese financial translations for 2,000 listed companies, this program alone could unlock a significant revenue channel.
Trading at just 0.5x revenue, and with strong balance sheet backing, Straker looks undervalued. The company is also pushing hard on ecosystem development, aiming to lock in 100 partnerships within six months. In a market that’s expected to consolidate rapidly, Straker stands out as a future-ready player with real operating leverage.
Pure Profile: Fuelling AI with First-Party Data
Pure Profile is a lesser-known ASX-listed company that specialises in AI-powered insights and data solutions. The company collects first-party data via proprietary platforms and sells this to governments, brands, and other organisations for decision-making.
In the first half of FY25, Pure Profile generated $29.2 million in revenue (22% growth YoY) and $1.6 million in net profit. More importantly, it’s now targeting the UK and U.S. markets, 5x and 30x the size of Australia, respectively, where the appetite for data is surging.
One of the most innovative parts of its business is avatar-based video surveys, allowing companies to interact with synthetic respondents and dramatically reduce cost and turnaround time. Beyond that, Pure Profile is exploring synthetic data products, a space likely to become a foundational input in the training of large AI models.
With EBITDA forecast at $7 million next year and a market cap of only $50 million, Pure Profile looks like a high-growth AI token enabler trading at a discount. M&A opportunities, particularly in the UK and Southeast Asia, could help accelerate its expansion.
Why AI Tokens Matter for Small Caps
The rise of AI tokens isn’t a niche story, it’s a structural shift in how digital value is created and consumed. AI models live on data, and the companies producing or organising that data, whether via transcription, translation, or insight generation, sit on a new kind of digital infrastructure.
Microsoft’s 100 trillion-token milestone is a preview of what’s coming. While the mega caps will always have their place, small agile players with domain expertise and a clear use case can deliver outsized returns.
From SaaS-led captioning to high-value translation models and data monetisation platforms, the three companies we’ve covered, AI Media, Straker, and Pure Profile, aren’t just tagging along for the AI ride. They’re building the tracks.
TAMIM Takeaway: Betting on the Infrastructure Behind AI
At TAMIM, we are drawn to the enablers, the picks and shovels that support the next wave of growth. The rise of AI tokens and the companies operationalising them offer precisely that opportunity.
AI Media is building a SaaS flywheel in content accessibility. Straker Translations is turning its legacy data into an AI translation advantage. Pure Profile is feeding AI’s insatiable demand for structured data.
Each of these businesses shares the following common traits:
Founder-led
Profitable or near break-even
Operating with strong balance sheets
Trading at a meaningful discount to intrinsic value
For investors looking to play the AI trend beyond the crowded mega cap space, these AI-driven small-cap stocks represent a compelling thematic. As always, do your homework, monitor upcoming catalysts (including earnings updates), and size your positions accordingly.
The AI arms race isn’t slowing down. These are the companies helping to fuel it.
Disclaimer: AI-Media Technologies (ASX: AIM), Straker Limited (ASX: STG) and Pure Profile Limited (ASX: PPL) are held in TAMIM Portfolios as at date of article publication. Holdings can change substantially at any given time.
Introduction: The Case for Real Assets in a Repricing World
In the current investment environment, where rates remain elevated, growth forecasts are patchy, and risk sentiment oscillates week-to-week, there’s a growing argument for looking past the noise. At Tamim, we’ve long been proponents of thematics grounded in long-duration cash flows and macro resilience. Infrastructure, particularly listed infrastructure, continues to earn its place as a vital, underappreciated pillar in that framework.
Why infrastructure, and why now? Because amid global uncertainty, few asset classes offer the same blend of defensiveness, inflation linkage, and long-term structural growth. As allocations to risk assets get reassessed in real time, infrastructure stands out not just as a ballast, but as a ballast with a growth driver.
This note, the first of a two-part series, outlines why listed infrastructure should command more attention in investor portfolios, especially in Australia where it’s structurally under-allocated. Our focus is not just on the appeal of stable cash flows, but on how these assets align with key megatrends shaping the global economy in the years ahead.
A Real Asset in an Unreal Environment
Infrastructure sits at the intersection of economics and physicality. Unlike digital-first business models or intangible-heavy growth stories, these are physical assets providing essential services: power, water, transport, communications. They are not easily disrupted. They are not easily replaced. In many cases, they are irreplaceable.
This tangibility matters in a world where asset prices are often untethered from fundamentals. While equity markets recalibrate to higher rates and political shifts, infrastructure offers something deeply reassuring: cash flows backed by regulation, concession agreements, or long-term contracts.
More than anything, listed infrastructure offers a rare combination in public markets, specifically predictable revenue with structural tailwinds.
Inflation-Linked Resilience
In theory, many equities are supposed to offer a hedge against inflation. In practice, few do particularly over shorter cycles. Infrastructure, however, often embeds inflation directly into its revenue models.
Whether through regulated utility returns, contracted CPI-linked escalators, or usage-based fees that track nominal GDP, infrastructure earnings tend to rise with inflation, not after the fact, but concurrently. This provides a real hedge, not just a theoretical one.
The relevance of this feature has only increased in recent years. As monetary authorities globally battle stickier inflation across labour and services, real assets with embedded inflation linkage are increasingly valuable, not just for capital preservation, but for income growth.
A Strategic Role in Portfolio Construction
We often speak of infrastructure as offering a “third way”, somewhere between bonds and equities. It carries equity-like growth with bond-like cash flow characteristics. This makes it particularly attractive during periods of uncertainty.
For long-term investors, infrastructure performs several roles:
Diversification: Infrastructure’s correlation to broader equities is relatively low, particularly during drawdowns.
Income stability: Cash yields from mature infrastructure assets can be consistent and above-market, with lower payout volatility.
Defensive growth: The asset class participates in upside when growth surprises to the upside (e.g., increased utilisation) while protecting the downside via essential service provision.
It is this duality, resilience and relevance, that makes infrastructure such a core holding for institutions globally, and increasingly, for retail portfolios seeking to hedge volatility with something productive.
Thematic Alignment: From Transition to Digitisation
Perhaps the most compelling reason to revisit infrastructure in 2025 is how well it maps to the defining macro themes of the coming decade.
Energy Transition
From grid modernisation to renewables, infrastructure is the literal and figurative backbone of the decarbonisation effort. Massive capital deployment is required, not in apps or marketplaces, but in transformers, substations, interconnectors, and storage.
Governments globally are leaning into this transition with policy and capital support. Infrastructure sits at the nexus of these policy-driven buildouts.
Demographic and Urban Growth
Ageing populations and urbanisation are not new trends, but their implications are compounding. The demand for transport networks, aged care facilities, and water security infrastructure continues to grow, not just in the developed world, but in high-growth markets across Asia and Latin America.
Digital Infrastructure
The digital economy still relies on physical infrastructure. Fibre, mobile towers, edge computing, and hyperscale data centres are the new pipes and roads. This “soft” infrastructure shares many of the cash flow characteristics of its hard infrastructure peers, and its capital intensity and longevity make it functionally identical from an investment standpoint.
In each of these areas, listed markets offer partial but meaningful exposure to the transition underway.
Repricing and the Opportunity in Listed Markets
Despite the strength of the underlying cash flows, listed infrastructure names have not been immune to market-wide volatility. As rates rose, discount rates increased. Valuations compressed. Sentiment swung.
But beneath the surface, the fundamentals remain largely intact. In fact, many listed infrastructure businesses have continued to grow earnings per share, pay dividends, and reinvest in their asset bases. What we’re seeing is a disconnect between price and value, a situation that doesn’t last forever.
This divergence creates opportunity.
Listed infrastructure is now trading at attractive multiples relative to history and private market equivalents. Investors with a long horizon and a focus on fundamentals have an entry point that may not last as macro clarity returns.
Liquidity vs Illiquidity: Don’t Confuse Smoothness with Safety
One critique often made of listed infrastructure is its exposure to market sentiment. Prices can move independently of fundamentals. This is true.
It’s also true of all listed assets, and often, the “smooth” returns of private infrastructure funds mask significant embedded risk. Illiquidity doesn’t eliminate volatility. It just hides it.
In contrast, listed infrastructure provides:
Real-time pricing
Transparent governance
Flexibility to rebalance or exit
For investors seeking both liquidity and infrastructure-like outcomes, it remains a highly viable path.
The Australian Dilemma: Scarcity of Local Names
The domestic listed infrastructure pool in Australia is increasingly narrow. Takeovers and privatisations have removed key names from the ASX. This scarcity only reinforces the need to look globally or to seek infrastructure traits in adjacent sectors.
That doesn’t mean there’s no opportunity here. It does mean however, that investors need to be creative, thematic, and willing to build a mosaic exposure rather than rely on a single name or ETF.
The second part of this series will examine how to do this effectively, combining local names, global strategies, and thematic adjacencies to create a robust infrastructure allocation.
TAMIM Takeaway: Quiet Strength, Real Utility
Infrastructure doesn’t promise exponential upside. It doesn’t pivot or disrupt or dazzle. But that’s precisely its appeal.
In 2025, with capital markets recalibrating and many investors re-evaluating their portfolios, real assets with real cash flows and real economic relevance are having a moment.
Infrastructure offers:
Stability in earnings and dividends
Hedge against inflation and policy volatility
Alignment with long-term macro trends
Actionable insights for investors:
Reassess your portfolio’s exposure to long-duration, real assets.
Consider global listed infrastructure as a way to enhance income and reduce beta.
Use market volatility to build positions in attractively priced infrastructure-linked strategies.
Focus on thematics, energy transition and digital transformation, where infrastructure is essential.
As we often say at Tamim, investing isn’t just about chasing growth, it’s about ensuring the foundations are sound. Infrastructure, now more than ever, deserves to be one of those foundations.
The global economy is standing on a precarious sandpile, one built from years of excess leverage, underpriced risk, and political complacency. With each new grain, be it a policy misstep, a rate shock, or a geopolitical surprise, we move closer to triggering a cascade.
Recent headlines, such as the US-China tariff pause, offer a reprieve from escalating tensions. However, this is not a signal that volatility is subsiding. Quite the opposite: the system is becoming more brittle, and the dislocations more frequent. As articulated in a recent macroeconomic outlook, the global economy is facing multiple simultaneous stressors, any of which could tip the pile.
At Tamim, we believe this era of continuous volatility is fertile ground for decisive investors. Over the next 3 and a half years (of the Trump Presidency), we expect repeated waves of fear and relief, repricing and recovery. This is not the time to be meak. It is a time for boldness, tempered by clarity, strategy, and deep research.
The Global Sandpile: Layer Upon Layer of Instability
John Mauldin recently described the world economy as a complex system where seemingly small changes can spark outsize consequences. The analogy of the sandpile is powerful: we have built global systems: financial, trade and monetary that appear stable until, suddenly, they aren’t.
Multiple stress points are developing:
Offshore US Dollar Liquidity: Eurodollar markets are increasingly strained as US fiscal dominance and Fed tightening crowd out foreign borrowers.
Trade Fractures: Despite this week’s tariff pause, the broader trend of deglobalisation and supply chain realignment continues.
Commercial Real Estate (CRE): Particularly in the US, CRE debt is rolling over into a higher-rate world.
Municipal and Sovereign Debt: Global public finances are deteriorating, with the US now running $2 trillion deficits in peacetime, a fiscal position that may become unsustainable under even mild stress.
This is not fear mongering. It is simply the reality of a system in which each fault line interacts with others in unpredictable ways.
Repricing and the Mirage of Stability
Markets are conditioned to expect reversion to the mean. But in systems under stress, the mean itself is shifting. What was once considered “normal” may no longer be relevant.
For example:
Yields are rising not from strength, but from disorder. A steepening US yield curve typically precedes recovery, but here it reflects a flight from duration amid inflation, fiscal fear, and geopolitical uncertainty.
Monetary policy has limited power to backstop growth. The Fed and other central banks are constrained by inflation risks, even as consumer and business confidence wavers.
Liquidity can vanish quickly. The velocity of money, once a quiet footnote, is now a flashing red light, warning of systemic slowing that can cascade quickly.
What this means for investors is simple: stability is not the baseline. Volatility is.
Volatility as a Feature, Not a Bug
Periods of economic tension often birth innovation and reallocation. This was true in the 1970s, the early 2000s, and again post-GFC. What we’re entering now is not dissimilar, a world where:
Mispriced assets are common.
Policy overreach and correction alternate.
Narratives change monthly.
Mauldin’s core message: the coming cycle will be jagged, non-linear, and filled with opportunities for those who can stay nimble and long-term focused.
At Tamim, we view volatility as the mechanism by which capital is transferred from the reactive to the prepared. Our role is to be in the latter camp.
Thematic Conviction Amid Disorder
We are applying this lens across our thematic portfolios. Where others see noise, we see:
Technology Repricing: AI, automation, and cloud computing continue to accelerate. Ýet valuations have reset, especially outside the mega-cap bracket. We are positioning into profitable, under-the-radar names where the market is yet to catch on.
Energy Transition: Australia’s shift towards a decarbonised economy is not optional. It’s inevitable. We continue to focus on the enablers, grid software, smart metering, storage infrastructure. Companies like Gentrack and Southern Cross Electrical remain well-placed.
Commercial Property Repricing: As Mauldin notes, CRE globally is repricing, particularly in office and retail. Yet repricing creates opportunity. We’re focusing on suburban, ESG-aligned office spaces with value-add potential.
Capital Rotation from Passive to Active: Benchmark-hugging may have worked in the liquidity-flooded 2010s. It won’t work now. We are already seeing capital flow to active managers who can navigate dislocation, not merely absorb it.
Macro Watch: US-China, Inflation, and the Political Cycle
The temporary truce in US-China tariffs is not the end of trade tension, it is a tactical delay. It reflects political strategy, not economic cooperation. As the US election cycle ramps up, expect more such blinks.
However, these pauses offer windows of clarity and pricing dislocations. Investors who can interpret these episodes not as direction, but as opportunity, will thrive.
The Fed, the RBA, and others are walking a tightrope. But history suggests the balance will tip. When it does, capital will flood into underloved sectors, likely triggering explosive rebounds.
Be positioned before that happens, not after.
TAMIM Takeaway: Opportunity Favours the Prepared and the Brave
In the next three years, we will likely see:
More market corrections
More major geopolitical or financial shocks
Shifting policy settings as governments grapple with fiscal pressures
Major moves in interest rates, both up and down
None of this should frighten disciplined investors. If anything, it should excite them. Such dislocations are where long-term returns are built.
Actionable insights for investors:
Don’t wait for the all-clear, invest on fundamentals, not headlines.
Keep powder dry, but don’t stay on the sidelines for too long.
Focus on companies with strong cash flows, scalable business models, and structural tailwinds.
Stay light on leverage, high on agility.
Use volatility as an entry point, not an exit excuse.
The next decade will be shaped by those who step into complexity with clear strategy and strong hands. This is the time to think boldly, act patiently, and embrace the dislocation as the birthplace of value.
AI Media, once a traditional live captioning business, is undergoing a remarkable reinvention. Its mission: to transform into a scalable, SaaS-first AI media solutions provider. That pivot is already underway, with half of its current revenue now coming from technology-based products.
Straker Translations, a New Zealand-based company with a 25-year legacy, is also undergoing its own evolution. Once a traditional services business, Straker is now focused on selling AI translation tools powered by its proprietary datasets. In the AI world, 
Pure Profile is a lesser-known ASX-listed company that specialises in 
