Daily Brief Equity Bottom-Up: Alibaba: Bull Thesis Shattered and more

• Optimism for improved shareholder returns through IPOs diminishes further as Alibaba (ADR) (BABA US) puts the Cloud spinoff on hold.
• Jack Ma’s sale of 10m ADS, representing 5% of his Alibaba holdings, sparks concern. Investors should worry about his lack of optimism.
• With the Cloud IPO on hold, Alibaba Group Holding (9988 HK) is vulnerable to numerous downside catalysts, as outlined below.

• In-Line results were overshadowed by company’s pullback from March restructuring plan and Jack ma’s family trust selling shares.
• Worst sell-off in a year was over-reaction as abrupt changes unnerved investors who tended to interpret the events  with excessive negative sentiments.
• Valuation almost priced in a scenario where company is overtaken by PDD in faltering Chinese economy. Selling amidst this extreme pessimism is the last thing investors want in our view. 

• Alibaba’s cloud servers experienced downtime for more than three hours.
• Kuaishou achieved success in the Singles Day sales and we expect a high growth rate for “other revenue” in 3Q23.
• Tims China’s revenue grew strongly with aggressive expansion of new stores.

• We expect total revenue will grow by 24% in 3Q23, as catering has been recovering in China.
• We expect Meituan can still earn positive operating profit 3Q23, as the company cut salespeople’s bonuses.
• We also believe that the stock has an upside of 87% for year end 2024.

• HK & China CRE credit impaired loans are rising sharply and high in 3Q23. We believe there is risk that the bank has to take much higher credit costs.
• Not only Mainland China CRE where there are risks. HSBC shows its ECL coverage ratio for HK CRE rising 45% over the past nine months, from 4Q22 to 3Q23.
• LT credit costs shows HSBC’s provisioning is like during a benign environment, at ~1/3 of its LT average. Its +34% QoQ credit costs in 4Q22 is worth keeping in mind.

• Major change of gameplan – Q1-3 FY12/2023 results were weaker than expected with the company revising down FY guidance, and withdrawing both current medium and long-term plans given highly challenging business conditions.
• An overview plan of structural reforms has been unveiled, focusing on becoming a more resilient and profitable business, realigning product lines, and rebuilding sales and production setups.
• Although an ambitious initiative with a wide scope, we believe that this will have a positive impact of significantly accelerating transformation initiatives, and transitioning the company to a more optimal business model.

• US Global Jets ETF (JETS US) surged by 6.6% last week, bringing the YTD to -2.1%. The strong move was in tandem with U.S. major indexes, but at 3x greater
• Positive fund inflow of US$92m, the second month in a row, reversing 17 months’ downtrend. Accumulation suggests the bottom is over, and investors turning positive on the aviation sector 
• Maintain TP of US$19 (+14% UPSIDE), but it might be a good idea to protect the downside with a short-term Put option, last week’s action was too fast and furious 

• Hygeia’s asset-heavy model leads to a situation of expense “front-loading” and profit “back-loading”.Management’s attitude towards profit is “thought-provoking”.It’s best for investors not to have high hope for Hygeia’s profit margin.
• Hygeia can maintain 30%+ growth in short term, but revenue growth could fall to 15-20% in the future due to lack of high-quality M&A targets and uncertainties brought by anti-corruption.
• Revenue forecast is about RMB4 billion in 2023 and RMB5-5.5 billion in 2024. P/E of 30-40 is reasonable range at this stage, which would drop afterwards. Current valuation is expensive. 

Deutsche Börse, a German markets infrastructure provider, operates through four divisions: Trading & Clearing, Securities Services, Data & Analytics and Fund Services. Trading & Clearing handles regulated market securities including derivatives, commodities, cash equities and foreign exchange, as well as providing market data. Data & Analytics – through its Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Qontigo subsidiaries offers quality-focused ESG, data and analytics products alongside indices such as STOXX and DAX. Securities Services manages settlement, custody, collateral and liquidity. Fund Services provides a comprehensive service offering data, distribution and processing(safekeeping). Both Security Services and Fund Services are operated on its leading platform, Clearstream, the largest asset holder in Germany.

• Reports 3Q23 revenues of $5.8 million and positive adjusted EBITDA of $405K, up from $2.1 million and negative ~$2 million, respectively, in 2Q23.
• The improved results reflect additional contributions from new projects that began ramping up in 2Q23, along with lower SG&A that reflects the cost-cutting efforts enacted earlier in 2023.
• We note that comparisons to 3Q22 are not meaningful given the company’s pivot to mostly hosting contracts at its data centers rather than proprietary Bitcoin mining where it recognized both higher revenues and costs.