In this briefing:
- Emart: Attractive Entry Point, Undervalued Real Estate Assets, & Homeplus REIT IPO
- Bleak Future for Indusind Bank
- Jamuna Bank: Clearing Electoral Uncertainties
- China Tower: More Details on Non Telco Growth Suggest Further Upside to Share Price
- Bank Mandiri (BMRI IJ) – Shape Shifting and Millenial Mortgages – On the Ground in J-Town
1. Emart: Attractive Entry Point, Undervalued Real Estate Assets, & Homeplus REIT IPO
Shares of E Mart Inc (139480 KS) are down 40% from their highs in March 2018 and we think this decline has been excessive. We believe the stock has bottomed and we expect a 20-30% upside on this stock over the next six months to one year (current share price is 193,500 won). At end of 3Q18, the company had 157 Emart hypermarkets and Traders warehouse supermarkets, of which 90% of their assets were owned by the company and 10% were leased. The company has the highest number of hypermarkets and warehouse supermarkets in Korea. The following are the major catalysts that could boost Emart shares by 20-30%+ in the next 6-12 months.
- Renewed focus on the company’s real estate value
- Upcoming IPO of Homeplus REIT in 2019
- Push back against a steep increase in minimum wages
- Success of Pierrot Shopping and a gradual reduction of unprofitable hypermarkets
2. Bleak Future for Indusind Bank
Indusind Bank’s reckless decision to provide a Rs 20 bn (8% of the bank’s capital) unsecured bridge loan to IL&FS, an insolvent infrastructure company has led to a significant de-rating of its valuation multiple. In the 3QFY2019 results call, Ramesh Sobti, the bank’s CEO believes that the bank will eventually need to provide only 40-50% of this exposure and the bank has currently provided only 26.5%. The bank’s guidance on this appears to be as optimistic as its initial appraisal when it disbursed the loan, without any apparent scrutiny of the company’s financials. Shareholders in the bank need to be more realistic and factor a 100% write-off on the unsecured IL&FS exposure and need to examine all the bank’s loans more carefully for similar high-risk lending. The glory days of this once fancied stock are over and a bleak future beckons.
3. Jamuna Bank: Clearing Electoral Uncertainties
The Jamuna Bank Ltd (JAMUNABA BD) narrative is underpinned by a quintile 1 global PH Score™ and a low franchise valuation as well as a high Earnings Yield by global standards.
Established by a group of local entrepreneurs in 2001, experienced in trade, commerce, and industry, Jamuna Bank Ltd is the only Bengali named 3rd generation private commercial bank. JBL. has exhibited vibrant growth over 18 years. The Credit Rating Agency of Bangladesh classifies JBL as AA2 [very strong capacity and very high quality] for Long Term and ST-2 for Short Term.
JBL offers both conventional and Islamic banking. The Bank provides diverse services, encompassing trade, commerce, and manufacturing. The traditional focus has been on the corporate sector (especially textiles and manufacturing services) though SME lending and retail are fast-expanding. JBL is engaged with entrepreneurs in setting up enterprise ventures and BMRE of existing industrial units. Operations are centred on Dhaka and Chittagong though Rajshahi is an important market too.
All 122 branches are running with real-time online capacity while the bank has 243 ATMs, sharing with other partner banks and consortium throughout Bangladesh. In addition, JBL is a Primary Dealer of government. securities.
While the economy is in a relatively stable state, the Banking Sector presents a highly mixed picture. Funding and liquidity are adequate in the Banking System in general. At the main listed entities, ROA and ROE stand at around 1% and 12%. Capitalisation targets are moving in the right direction though there is a shortfall at a number of lenders. The sector is weighed down by SOCB asset quality and poor governance which needs to be addressed as it exerts a distortionary impact across the system. SOCB NPL Ratio stands at around 30% and is probably worse than this versus around 10% for the system in general. The system stressed Loan/Investment Ratio is probably double this level. Worryingly, private sector bank defaults are rising at a fast clip as LDRs climb at the same time.
Shares of JBL stand on an Earnings Yield of 17.7%, a P/B of 0.94x, and a FV at 9%, below EM and global medians. A quintile 1 PH Score™ of 7.9 captures value-quality attributes. Combining franchise valuation and PH Score™, Jamuna Bank stands in the top decile of opportunity globally. Recent strong share performance is not unrelated to the clearing of electoral uncertainty. And there seems a real tailwind behind these shares of late.
4. China Tower: More Details on Non Telco Growth Suggest Further Upside to Share Price
After initially being very skeptical of the China Tower (788 HK) IPO given it is essentially a price take to its three largest shareholders, we changed our view in early December to a more positive outlook. What changed our view has been series of calls and meetings with the company that suggested a more shareholder friendly approach than expected and a real opportunity to reduce capex substantially through the use of “social resources” (e.g. electricity grid, local government sites). These can be used to deliver co-locations without building towers and poles and imply much lower capital intensity at a time when revenue growth will be accelerating as 5G is rolled out. Management has also given more detail on non-Tower business prospects which can generate higher returns (not under the Master Services Agreement). While small now (2% of revenue) they are growing rapidly. With lower capex than initially guided and a more shareholder friendly management (i.e. higher dividends are possible) we reduce the SOE discount and raise our forecasts (again). We remain at BUY with a new target price of HK$2.20
5. Bank Mandiri (BMRI IJ) – Shape Shifting and Millenial Mortgages – On the Ground in J-Town
A recent meeting with Bank Mandiri Persero (BMRI IJ) in Jakarta confirmed a positive outlook for loan growth and net interest margins for 2019, with continuing incremental improvements to credit quality, especially in the MidCap and SME space.
The bank is optimistic about loan growth in 2019 but with a shift in the shape of growth, with Midcap and SME loans moving into positive territory, a slight tempering of growth from large corporates.
Microlending continues to be a significant growth driver, especially salary-based loans, which have huge potential and are relatively low risk.
Mandiri is switching its focus on smaller sized mortgages and is even offering products specifically targeting millennials. It is also training staff in its branches to promote both mortgages and auto loans, which should help to boost growth in consumer loans.
The bank is investing heavily in growing both Mandiri Online mobile banking, as well as working closely with the major e-commerce players in Indonesia.
Management is optimistic about the outlook for net interest margins and comfortable with its funding requirements, with good visibility on credit quality.
Bank Mandiri Persero (BMRI IJ) remains a key proxy for the Indonesian banking sector, with an increasingly well-diversified portfolio and growing exposure to the potentially higher growth areas of microlending and consumer loans. The bank has fully embraced modern day banking with strong growth in Mandiri Online, which should help the bank grow its transactional business and its current and savings accounts (CASA). Its push to grow salary-based loans is another business with huge potential, given the low penetration of its corporate pay-roll accounts. According to Cap IQ consensus estimates, the bank trades on 12.5x FY19E PER and 11.0x FY20E PER, with forecast EPS growth of +16.5% and +11.8% for FY19E and FY20E. The bank trades on 1.9x FY18E PBV with an FY18E ROE of 13.9%, which is forecast to rise to 15.5% by FY20E. Given its higher growth profile and rising ROE, the bank looks relatively attractive compared to peers.
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