Brief IPOs & Placements: Ab InBev Asia Pre-IPO – Quick Note – More like CR Beer Rather than Tsingtao and more

In this briefing:

1. Ab InBev Asia Pre-IPO – Quick Note – More like CR Beer Rather than Tsingtao
2. Hyundai Autoever IPO Preview
3. Hyundai Autoever IPO Pricing: Likely to Be a Dull Event Given No Growth Story & Glovis Merger

1. Ab InBev Asia Pre-IPO – Quick Note – More like CR Beer Rather than Tsingtao

Anheuser Busch Inbev Sa/Nv (ABI BB) is looking to list its Asian operations in order to lighten its debt burden. The listing will probably be in Hong Kong and the company could raise around US$5bn at a valuation of around US$70bn.

In my earlier insight, Ab InBev Asia Pre-IPO – A Brief History of the Asia Pacific Operations – Eeking Out Growth in China, I looked at how the Asian operations of ABI have shaped up over the past few years.  

In this insight, I’ll do a quick comparison of the past financial performance of China Resources Beer Holdin (291 HK) and Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd H (168 HK).

2. Hyundai Autoever IPO Preview

• Hyundai Autoever is ready to complete its IPO in March 2019. Established in 2000, Hyundai Autoever is the IT service arm of the Hyundai Motor Group. Hyundai Autoever is expected to play a key role in the Hyundai Motor Group’s push to become a leading global player of autonomous driving in the coming decade. 
• The IPO price range is between 40,000 won and 44,000 won. The IPO base deal size is from $125 million to $138 million. According to the bankers’ valuation, the expected market cap is expected to range from 840 billion won to 924 billion won. 
• The bankers used four companies including Samsung SDS, POSCO ICT, Lotte Data Comm, and Shinsegae I&C to value Hyundai Autoever. Using the annualized net profit of the comps in 2018, the bankers derived an average P/E multiple of 24x for the peers. Then the bankers took the annualized net profit of Hyundai Autoever in 2018 (52.2 billion won) and applied the peers average P/E multiple of 24x to derive the implied market cap of 1.25 trillion won. After applying additional IPO discount of 26.4% – 33.1%, the bankers derived the IPO price range of 40,000 to 44,000 won. 

3. Hyundai Autoever IPO Pricing: Likely to Be a Dull Event Given No Growth Story & Glovis Merger

• Hyundai Autoever offers a total 3,510,000 shares. Split is 9.9% primary and 90.1% secondary. Shares are preliminarily priced at ₩40,000~44,000. This puts the company value at ₩840~924bil. Bookbuilding will be Mar 13~14.
• Valuation is a bit aggressive. It is being heard that local institutions are not particularly excited about this IPO mainly because of Autoever’s 90% captive business. That is, growth story isn’t looking fancy. At a 17x PER on Autoever’s FY19 expected earnings, it is sitting in the middle of the indicative price band. There shouldn’t be much room to play around.
• The major shareholder was expected to sell as much as 50% of their shares through secondary distribution. Actual offering size is much smaller. This sparks the speculation that Autoever will soon be merged with Glovis. Much smaller offering size may be for facilitating the merger. It can pave a less controversial path for another merger attempt with Mobis.
• But this speculation can render this IPO meaningless though. I expect this IPO will be a dull event. I wouldn’t avoid it completely though. Stable income stream and connected car are are still something worthy. I’d buy them at the right price. Low end should be the right price.