Daily Brief Japan: Rakuten Bank, HS Holdings and more

In today’s briefing:

Rakuten Bank (5838) IPO – New Price Is One To Take (Part 1)
Khan Bank IPO Is Here – At IPO Price, the Stake Is Worth More than HS Holdings’ Share Price
Rakuten Bank IPO Valuation: A Deep Value Play in Japanese Banking

Rakuten Bank (5838) IPO – New Price Is One To Take (Part 1)

Rakuten Bank (5838 JP) has priced at a new range of ¥1,300-1,400/share, down from ¥1,630-1,930/share. That lowers TTM PER and PBR to well below where SBI Sumishin was priced.
This will now be universally recognised by pre-IPO analysts as a raging buy. Even at the top end. Important considerations: Rakuten parent TAM, growth, index inclusions, etc.
There are OTHER important considerations going forward which show themselves in the documents.

Today, it was announced that HS Holdings (8699 JP) subsidiary Khan Bank LLC – Mongolia’s largest bank – would IPO this month.
This is a big deal. The IPO is for 10% of the bank (US$521mm equivalent). Priced at 4x Dec 2022 earnings for a bank which has ~ 25% ROE.
There is a reason to expect substantial realisation of this value within 2023 due to a section of Feb 2021 Amended Mongolian Banking Law. Plus there is boatloads of cash.

Rakuten Bank announced its IPO price range at ¥1,300-1,400 per share, which is 20-29% lower than the initially indicated price range at the time of filling of the IPO prospectus.
The new price puts Rakuten Bank (5838 JP) on 4.9-5.3x FY+2 PE, which is the lowest in Japan’s banking sector.
Japanese banks usually trade at a price-to-book of 0.2x per 1% ROE. This indicates that Rakuten Bank, which is priced at 1.0-1.1x, may deserve a fair price-to-book of over 2.0x.

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