Asean-focused. Ex-Head of Thai Research

Athaporn Arayasantiparb, CFA

Athaporn served as Head of Research for UOB and ANZ in Thailand and was an award-winning telecoms analyst at UBS in 2010 (AsiaMoney Thailand category) and Regional Strategist for DMG in Singapore. Prior to that, he also served as Kasikornbank credit analyst and scholar. He has a total work experience of 22 years, of which 19 were in research and 9 in research management roles. He started his career as an engineer for PTT and currently manages family investments. He holds an MBA from Stern (NYU) and CFA Charter since 2006.

Apart from IPO Radar, which focuses on future listings, MCorp Review also performs financial advisory services for TKC Services and provides 11 other on-going thematic series ranked by frequency in descending order, namely:

1) Snippets (news-driven);
2) Sathorn Series (financial services);
3) Silicon Stories (technology); 
4) Thai-Coons (billionaire origin series);
5) Reality Check (data-driven, investigative);
6) Thai Media Spotlight;
7) Political Pit Stop; 
8) Telecom Review; 
9) Thai Macro Watch (read-through from foreign events);  
10) Small Cap Diary; and
11) Property Grid

There are also 3 limited-time series driven by specific events or locations, namely:
1) Thai Corona Crisis;
2) South Series; and
3) Mechanics and Details (deal forensics).

Political Pit Stop (April): An Election Gridlock

The Week that Was in ASEAN@Smartkarma - Elections, Trade War Beneficiaries, and Indonesian Textiles

Political Pit Stop (May): Search for Solution

IPO Stalker: M Visions, Mobile Expo Organizers

Berli Jucker: Strong Tissue Sales Offset Retail Pains

The Donut Dilemma: Thailand Takes On Trans-Fats

Telecom Review: DTAC's Costly Decision in the Spectrum Wars

Asean (Thailand) Focused Independent Research

M Corp Review

M Corp is led by Athaporn Arayasantiparb who served as Head of Research for UOB and ANZ in Thailand and was an award-winning telecoms analyst at UBS in 2010 (AsiaMoney Thailand category) and Regional Strategist for DMG in Singapore. Prior to that, he also served as Kasikornbank credit analyst and scholar. He has a total work experience of 17 years, of which 14 were in research and 4 in research management roles. He started his career as an engineer for PTT and currently manages family investments. He holds an MBA from Stern (NYU) and CFA Charter since 2006. Apart from IPO Radar, which focuses on future listings, MCorp Review also provides six on-going thematic series ranked by frequency in descending order, namely: 1) Silicon Stories (technology) 2) Sathorn Series (financial services) 3) Thai-Coons (billionaire origin stories) 4) Reality Check (data-driven, investigative) 5) Thai Media Spotlight; and 6) Thai Macro Watch (global market drivers).

Equity Bottom-Up

We visited one big-cap stock, Berli Jucker, and one pip-squeak recent IPO M Vision today. A couple of highlights:<ul>
<li>Slow revenue growth at BJC at under 5% largely driven by Big C (hypermarket), but earnings growth was strong at 28% mainly due to lower cost of palm oil in the snack business.</li>
<li>
Good progress in Vietnam with expansion of the bottle capacity this year and SABECO increasing purchases of bottles.</li>
<li>
Overall unimpressed. The company isn't expecting to grow revenues more than 9% this year, and many of the cost cuts we saw in 2018 are clearly one-offs. Higher oil prices are likely to lead to rising palm oil prices this year too, since the two commodities are linked through substitution effect.</li>
<li>
MVP underwent a bad year on the profit level, but their various businesses, at least on the top line level, looks like it could recover quickly this year.</li>
</ul>

We visited one big-cap stock, Berli Jucker, and one pip-squeak recent IPO M Vision today. A couple of highlights:
Slow revenue growth at BJC at under 5% largely driven by Big C (hypermarket), but earnings growth was strong at 28% mainly due to lower cost of palm oil in the snack business.

Good progress in Vietnam with expansion of the bottle capacity this year and SABECO increasing purchases of bottles.

Overall unimpressed. The company isn't expecting to grow revenues more than 9% this year, and many of the cost cuts we saw in 2018 are clearly one-offs. Higher oil prices are likely to lead to rising palm oil prices this year too, since the two commodities are linked through substitution effect.

MVP underwent a bad year on the profit level, but their various businesses, at least on the top line level, looks like it could recover quickly this year.


Berli Jucker

Company Visits: Berli Jucker, M Visions