In this briefing:
- LNG: What Matters This Week? Prices Fall Further in Asia but New Projects Continue to Progress
- Moore’s Law May Not Be Dead, After All
- RRG Weekly – Is Modi Government Cooking the Books? Brexit Risks Rise. South Africa Could Surprise
- Upstream Oil & Gas M&A Review: Surge of Takeovers and Mergers in 2018 – What to Expect in 2019
- SAPPE: New Strategic Partner Drive 2019 Earning Growth
1. LNG: What Matters This Week? Prices Fall Further in Asia but New Projects Continue to Progress
LNG prices have dropped to a seasonal low, as we flagged in our outlook piece for this year (2019 Energy Market Themes & Stocks with Exposure: Focus on Oil, Refining, LNG, M&A & Renewables) but this hasn’t dampened enthusiasm to push new projects forward (see A Huge Wave of New LNG Projects Coming in the Next 18 Months: Positive for The E&C Companies). We continue to see this as positive for the LNG contractors and negative for the LNG developers. We discuss recent LNG prices, European LNG demand and the FID outlook including project updates from Venture Global, Alaska and Cyprus.
2. Moore’s Law May Not Be Dead, After All
For years semiconductor makers and investors have worried that Moore’s Law will end. Although it is not difficult to find proponents of this argument today, this Insight provides evidence that the venerable phenomenon not only is still moving forward, but that it has, in some cases, been moving faster than it has in the past.
3. RRG Weekly – Is Modi Government Cooking the Books? Brexit Risks Rise. South Africa Could Surprise
- Russia: Recent study estimates that unreported activity accounts for about 20% of GDP. Moscow could use this lost tax revenue.
- Singapore: MAS qtrly survey of professional forecasters estimates 2019 GDP growth at 2.5% for this year, down from median estimate of 2.7% in the September survey.
- South Africa: Morgan Stanley is calling for outperformance by South African economy and stocks in the coming months. Focus on Healthcare and Retail Names)
- India: Modi’s government is accused of politicizing economic data government in a growing debate over the credibility of India’s official growth estimates.
4. Upstream Oil & Gas M&A Review: Surge of Takeovers and Mergers in 2018 – What to Expect in 2019
The last three years have been characterized by significant M&A activity in the upstream oil and gas industry. As the oil cycle recovered from the price bottom in January 2016, lower asset prices and corporate valuations created opportunities for the companies with a stronger balance sheet to grow inorganically while their weaker competitors were forced to downsize their portfolios. 2018, in particular, has seen a surge of corporate M&A which has been driving consolidation in the industry. This insight examines the trends that have shaped the M&A markets since 2016 with a closer view of 2018 and the outlook for 2019.
Exhibit 1: M&A volume compared to the E&P index and the oil price since 2016
5. SAPPE: New Strategic Partner Drive 2019 Earning Growth
We cut our target price by 22% to Bt24.7 to factor in disappointing 2018 result. However, we maintain our BUY rating on the back of positive outlook toward its new products and market expansion plan.
The story:
- Posted net profit of Bt50m in 4Q18, down 36%YoY and 25%QoQ
- Trimmed 2019-21E forecast by 23.8%-24.3% respectively
- Expanding strategic partnership
- Our new target price of Bt24.7 is based on a target PE’19E of 18.8x which is equivalent to the World’s consumer staples sector.
Risks: (1) Fluctuations in raw material prices
(2) Exchange rate fluctuations
(3) Highly competitive industry
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