Daily Brief Consumer: Fast Retailing, Xinyi Glass Holdings, Boustead Plantations, Tesla Motors, Connect, Tata Motors Ltd, Organto Foods, Adeia and more

• Fast Retail Full-Year Expectations: Anticipate strong FY results, but potential FY8/24 guidance headwinds include weather impacts and yen weakness.
• Management Guidance Risks: The key risk would seem to be China outlook; Japan/Europe’s heatwave impact on fall season; potential for gross margin pressures.
• Valuation: Despite growth prospects, concerns over cyclicality and valuation relative to peers persist.

• Xinyi Glass Holdings (868 HK)‘s stable auto glass business is often overlooked, making up 39% of the company’s gross profit in 1H23.
• Given the current valuation of 7x 2023E PE and 1.3x 2023E PB, the risk reward is skewed to the upside, and downside is protected with the stable auto glass business. 
• The company’s management has been aggressively increasing stake in the company in the last 2 months, gobbling up 11 million shares.

• Boustead Plantations (BPLANT MK) shares have been on a rollercoaster ride. As Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK MK) pulls its offer, LTAT has emerged as an unlikely white knight. 
• LTAT aims to launch a general offer at RM1.55 per share, in line with KLK’s aborted MGO price. The government will backstop LTAT’s funding for the offer. 
• LTAT is vague on approvals and timing. Regulatory approvals should be a formality as LTAT is the Armed Forces pension fund. At the last close, the gross spread was 10.7%. 

• Factory shutdowns for “updates” doesn’t explain Tesla’s huge Q3 miss on deliveries.
• Why? Because bloated excess inventory was enough to cover the 20k “miss” some 3-5x. 
• A better explanation: Tesla’s accelerating demand erosion, which I have been tracking since last year in every major market.

Smiths News’ recent trading update highlights continued growth in adjusted operating profit, which is anticipated to be at least in line with market expectations of £38.3m (Edison: £38.1m). This represents a marginal increase of 0.5% year-on-year, despite the substantial inflationary impacts seen in the past two years. We expect additional publisher contract renewals to be secured in the next year, which should further bolster the company’s cash-generative business model and underpin the sustainability of the business in the long term. Our forecasts are unchanged, as is our valuation of 89p/share, which represents substantial upside.

Lucror Analytics Morning Views comprise our fundamental credit analysis, opinions and trade recommendations on high yield issuers in the region, based on key company-specific developments in the past 24 hours. Our Morning Views include a section with a brief market commentary, key market indicators and a macroeconomic and corporate event calendar.

• AAC Technologies Holdings
• Tata Motors ADR

• What you need to know: • Organto announced that it has expanded into Asia with an international retailer and plans to grow this market over the coming years • OGO also announced that it plans to expand into North America in late 2023 (initially with the U.S. ).
• This includes its plans to expand into North America, expansion into Asia, increasing its debt facilities, and consolidating its common shares.
• North America Expansion This morning, Organto announced that it plans to expand its platform into North America, initially the U.S. market.

• ADEA revised its full year outlook after electing to sue long-time customer Shaw Communications for breach of contract
• Shaw was acquired by Rogers Communications (RCI). ADEA claims Shaw is no longer paying ADEA even though the two companies had signed a license renewal in 2019
• We are reducing our 2023 revenue forecast to approximately $387.7 million with operating income of $250.8 million