Daily Brief Financials: Rakuten Bank , Central China Real Estate, EML Payments Limited, Square Inc and more

• Rakuten Bank (5838 JP), the online banking arm of Rakuten (4755 JP), raised around US$630m in its Japan IPO.
• RB is the largest internet bank in Japan, by number of accounts. As of Dec 22, it had 13.3m deposit accounts with a total deposit base of JPY8.8tn.
• In our earlier notes, we have looked at various aspects of the deal. In this note, we talk about the deal dynamics and trading updates.

• Rakuten Bank (5838 JP) priced its IPO at JPY1,400 per share to raise gross proceeds of US$620 million. The shares will start trading on 21 April.
• We previously discussed the IPO in Rakuten Bank IPO: The Investment Case, Rakuten Bank Vs SBI Sumishin Net Bank and Rakuten Bank IPO: New Price Range Is a Steal. 
• Peers have re-rated and our valuation analysis points to a fair value of around JPY1,900 per share, 36% above the IPO price. Therefore, the IPO price remains attractive.

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.

• Central China Securities
• Nickel Industries Ltd
• China Datang Corp Renewable Power
• Yankuang Energy Group

EML Payments has announced the appointment of a new interim CEO and a renewed focus to solve the immediate challenges facing the company. This includes strengthening support for the regulatory remediation process, optimising costs, targeting growth in core business areas and retaining talent. The board has also appointed Barrenjoey to conduct a strategic review of the business. We maintain our estimates.

• Block’s stock has been in the news and faced a strong correction after becoming the latest target of Hindenburg.
• The report alleges that Block has overstated its genuine user counts and has understated its customer acquisition costs.
• It was damaging enough to result in a sharp correction in the company’s share price.