Brief Equities Bottom-Up: New J. Hutton Exploration Report (Week Ending 15/02/19) and more

In this briefing:

1. New J. Hutton Exploration Report (Week Ending 15/02/19)
2. Sell Bombardier: Core EBIT Fell, Core Cashflow Is Negative, Covenants Maybe Under Stress
3. Singtel’s Weak 3Q18 Results but Dividend Looks Sustainable and Long Term Upside from Associates
4. FANCL: Playing the Long Game
5. HK Connect Discovery Weekly: China Tower, Geely, COFCO Meat (2019-02-15)

1. New J. Hutton Exploration Report (Week Ending 15/02/19)

• Gold Road Resources (GOR AU) continued strong BUY
• Mineral Resource increased 2% to 6.61Moz
• 2019 attributable production guided at 50–60koz Au
• AISC est. between A$1,050 to $1,150/oz, is realistic
•  Using $1,300/oz attributable 2019 EBIT will be between US$7.5-15m
• 2020 attributable EBIT of 150k/oz conservative $A54m
• Price/EBIT ratio now 10.9 to 16.8 (previous est. 8 to 9.1)
• Expand AIM & ASX coverage to 397 companies from next week
• Gold Road Resources (GOR AU), Azumah Resources (AZM AU), Millennium Minerals (MOY AU), Metals X Ltd (MLX AU), De Grey Mining (DEG AU) , Resolute Mining (RSG AU), Andromeda Metals (ADN AU)  

2. Sell Bombardier: Core EBIT Fell, Core Cashflow Is Negative, Covenants Maybe Under Stress

Core EBIT fell: FY2018 EBIT and cashflow were inflated by one-off gains.

Core cashflow remains negative: Bombardier Inc (BBD/B CN) is still unable to fund its annual US$1bn+ capex budget from core operating cashflow.

Covenants maybe under stress: We are very concerned that the consolidated capital structure presented to investors is very different to the structures used in their debt covenants.

3. Singtel’s Weak 3Q18 Results but Dividend Looks Sustainable and Long Term Upside from Associates

Singtel (ST SP) recent 3Q18 results were relatively lackluster. Singapore revenue trends were encouraging, but EBITDA remains under pressure esp in the Enterprise segment. Optus saw good net subscriber additions, but this came at a cost – lower ARPU and mobile service revenue (MSR). We have lowered our forecast to reflect pressure on EBITDA and continued losses in Group Digital Life (GDL) but maintain a BUY on the stock with a target price of S$4.00. The near 6% dividend yield is the key support and we believe it can continue to be paid without resorting to increased leverage. Longer term, the fate of key associates (India and Indonesia in particular) are key to the stock’s performance

4. FANCL: Playing the Long Game

• The declining and ageing population in Japan has been a major cause for concern to many Japanese companies.
• Fancl Corp (4921 JP), is a relatively small player in the Japanese cosmetics and nutritional supplements space who is expected to benefit from the declining and ageing population.
• Compared to the peer average, EV/Sales discount narrowed down significantly over the course of the last year. But we believe the discount remains the same on a growth adjusted basis.
• Still too small for institutional investors to notice. But we expect them to start noticing the company over the coming years.
• One of the cheapest stocks on a long term forward multiple, as we expect FANCL to sustain its high growth over a long period of time.

We are not sure if Fancl Corp (4921 JP) can ever be in the same league as Shiseido or Kao, but we certainly believe the company doesn’t deserve to be about 10% of the size of Shiseido. Thus, we have a very long-term bullish view on FANCL and expect to see the company’s market cap to double over the next 5-7 years

5. HK Connect Discovery Weekly: China Tower, Geely, COFCO Meat (2019-02-15)

In our Discover HK Connect series, we aim to help our investors understand the flow of southbound trades via the Hong Kong Connect, as analyzed by our proprietary data engine. We will discuss the stocks that experienced the most inflow and outflow by mainland investors in the past seven days.

We split the stocks eligible for the Hong Kong Connect trade into three groups: component stocks in the HSCEI index, stocks with a market capitalization between USD 1 billion and USD 5 billion, and stocks with a market capitalization between USD 500 million and USD 1 billion.

In this week’s HK Connect Discovery, we highlight the continuous inflow to China Tower prior to lock-up expiry,  positive news development for automobile stocks, and the pork cycle beneficiary.