In today’s briefing:
- Mitsui & Co (8031) Buyback – Big Profit, Big Div, Big Buyback, Some Index Selling
- Huge Gap in Awareness of Human Rights Between Japanese Companies and Investors
- Toshiba (6502) – Funding Deadline Risk Was Known 6+ Weeks Ago
- Deep Dive: Komatsu (6301, KMTUY)
Mitsui & Co (8031) Buyback – Big Profit, Big Div, Big Buyback, Some Index Selling
- Mitsui & Co Ltd (8031 JP) on 1 November reported its results for H1 2022. H1 Revenue +37.1%yoy, OP+27.2%yoy, NP+33.2%yoy to ¥539bn. Full-year NP forecast +22.5% to ¥980bn.
- Mitsui raised its dividend forecast (previously scheduled to rise from ¥105/share to ¥120/share) to ¥130/share and announced a ¥140bn buyback, adding to the ¥100bn announced in May completed in September.
- The first ¥58.6bn was done in a ToSTNeT-3 buyback. Now there is another ¥79.4bn to go. There’s also a fair bit of index selling the next 6mos.
Huge Gap in Awareness of Human Rights Between Japanese Companies and Investors
- While 80% of Japanese institutional investors place a high value on corporate respect for human rights, only 10% of companies have conducted human rights due diligence.
- Japanese institutional investors should make it “visible” to their beneficiaries how they require companies to respect human rights in their engagement and how they encourage effective responses.
- To ensure that the guidelines don’t end up as mere figure of speech, the government should make concrete policies to ensure that respect for human rights takes root in society.
Toshiba (6502) – Funding Deadline Risk Was Known 6+ Weeks Ago
- There are several bits of news in the past few weeks indicating financing commitments might not meet the 7 Nov deadline. Principal among them the JIC/JIP split many weeks ago.
- That suggested the 30 Sep and subsequent deadlines would be delayed. And it appears we now have the reason for it, and that is another cause of financing commitment delay.
- This development suggests activists have another quiver in their arrow should privatisation not succeed. Toshiba has cheapened in the meantime.
Deep Dive: Komatsu (6301, KMTUY)
- Industrials have been quite resilient this year. Their stocks prices have run up as sector earnings fared better-than-expected, and as investors have looked for safety under the cover of ‘real economy’ stocks during a year in which tech is down big.
- You may think that the train has left the station already with blue chip industrials like Caterpillar and Deere.
- They’re certainly trading near all time highs! But hold on. There is one train which hasn’t left yet, and that is Komatsu.
💡 Before it’s here, it’s on Smartkarma
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