Daiwa Pan-Asia Top Ideas
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DAIWA Dialogues This is a sales note and not a research report Tuesday Feb 28th, 2012 Pan Asia: Elpida's (6665 JP) demise is Samsung/Hynix's fortune HK/China: Hang Seng Bank – top pick among HK banks Taiwan: HTC - QCOM chip shortage another blow – reiterate SELL Korea: Banks: Positive – outperformance during Yen weakness ASEAN: Digi.com – Has valuations factored in the impending Maxis threat? India: Capital Goods: How should one position? Japan: Japan Tobacco – upgrade as co shld be able to hike ASP & vol in overseas mkt Pan Asia: Elpida's (6665 JP) demise is Samsung/Hynix's fortune [Analyst: Jae Lee] Today the sales desk read much into Elpida’s file for bankruptcy – being the 4th largest DRAM producer with 12% mk shr, it is no surprise that the company could no longer sustain its business without much pricing power in DRAM and scale. Analyst Jae Lee maintains his view that being dependent on DRAM only, it couldn't have ‘clashed with the titans’ like Sammy (#1, m/s 45%) which has net cash, Hynix (2nd, m/s 22%) which received a capital injection from SKT & Micron (3rd, m/s 12%), which has a strong balance sheet. Chances are Elpida will scale back its 120k/mth capacity in Hiroshima which will have a positive knock on effect on DRAM supply/demand dynamics. Jae believes that DRAM price has bottomed out at US90c but these days it costs US2-3bn to maintain a fab vs 10x less 10 yrs ago, which begs the ultimate question - why should even more marginal players like Nanay, Winbond, Promos, Powerchip continue to exist? While Jae hesitated to comment, we believe that Elpida's demise has just exposed the weakness of lesser players, & hence the strength of Sammy & Hynix, which are up 1% & 7% on this news. Stick to Sammy for keeps & Hynix for a trade. Link to report: http://asiaresearch.daiwacm.com/eg/cgi-bin/files/20120227asia_MemoryChipIndustry.pdf#page=1 HK/China: Hang Seng Bank (11 HK, m/c US$25b, BUY) – top pick among HK banks [Analyst: Grace Wu] HSB’s 2011 net profit came in at HK$16.7bn, up 11.8% YoY, in line with our expectations but ahead of consensus by 5%. Lower-than-expected fees and trading gains were mostly offset by lower costs and loan impairments, as well as higher-than-expected associate income and property revaluation gains. Despite flat loan growth of 1.6% YoY (down 4.6% HoH as some cross-border loans were repaid), net interest income grew 10% YoY, thanks to improved loan spreads. The NIM was flat YoY at 1.78%, though in 2H11 the NIM expanded by 5bps to 1.8% despite increased deposit competition in Hong Kong. HSB continues to demonstrate strong balance sheet management, with good improvement in its capital ratio, robust asset quality and tight cost discipline. HSB also de- risked its investment portfolio and shifted more investments into treasury bills during 2011. HSB remains our top pick in our Hong Kong banks coverage group for its defensive balance sheet, strong capital and solid 5% dividend yield. We have maintained our Gordon Growth Model-based target price of HK$125, based on a 2.9x 2012E PBR. Link to report: http://asiaresearch.daiwacm.com/eg/cgi-bin/files/20120227hk_HSB.pdf#page=1 Taiwan: HTC (2498 TT, m/c US$18.1b, TP NT$267, SELL) - QCOM chip shortage another blow – reiterate SELL [NOTE TW MKT CLOSED TODAY] [Analyst: Alex Chang] Alex takes down his TP for HTC to NT$267 (share px NT$629) as HTC’s flagship model (‘HTC Ville’) could be delayed until 3Q12 owing to a likely shortage of Qualcomm's 8960 series IC. Alex cuts his 2012E EPS to NT$33.38 from NT$40.53 as HTC may have to rely only on legacy models with low gross margins in 2Q12. Due to the low initial yield rate at the 28mn process for Qualcomm’s new chipset, output likely may not improve until 3Q12. According to Alex, this will hurt deliveries of Qualcomm’s 8960 series (8960 & 8260A chipsets) to a customer with a fairly weak bargaining power such as HTC. Keep in mind both Samsung (005930 KS, O/PF) and HTC are rolling out new flagship models at the same time in 2Q12 with a Qualcomm 8960 chipset. At this point Samsung enjoys greater scale economy and Alex believes HTC faces a serious shortage of the 8960 chipset and delays launching its flagship HTC Ville to 3Q12. The delay will negatively impact HTC’s total shipments for the year, especially on the high end models. Alex believes other HTC models such as the Endeavor likely will not make up for loss of earnings from HTC Ville due to its sub-standard battery life. With Samsung rolling out the Galaxy SIII in May, and Apple’s iPhone 5 in July, HTC likely will Important: Please visit the following web site for an important disclaimer Page 1 http://www.hk.daiwacm.com/sales_disclaimer.html DAIWA Dialogues This is a sales note and not a research report Tuesday Feb 28th, 2012 fall further behind similar to the manner in which Ericsson fell behind its competitors back in 1999-2003 time frame. AVOID HTC. Link: Link to report: http://asiaresearch.daiwacm.com/eg/cgi-bin/files/20120224tw_HTCCorp.pdf#page=1 Korea: Banks: Positive – outperformance during Yen weakness [Analyst Anderson Cha] Our Korean banks’ analyst Anderson, makes a good argument that since 2001, Korean banks have tended to outperform during Yen weakness vs KRW. This is because, while the KRW’s appreciation against the Yen and other currencies does not have a major impact on the banks bottom lines, it is still slightly positive for the bottom line for most of the time. Given that most banks are borrowers of foreign currencies including the Yen, strong KRW implies improvements on fundamentals. Korean banks have been outperforming the KOSPI YTD on the back of strong local institutions buying. Banks tend to outperform during liquidity driven rallies, which has been the case in each of the past three liquidity-driven rallies, and sales believe it is a matter of time that the banks become noted for being a strong KRW beneficiary. The sector is a good alternative to sectors with a direct exposure to the weakening Yen. Such sentiments could spread among local institutions as they are still underweighting on the banks. Still trading at 0.67x book, the banks still offer attractive valuations and our top picks are Hana FG (086790 KS, BUY, TP W54,300) and KB FG (105560 KS, O/PF, TP W46,800) at 0.64x and 0.62x, respectively. Link to report: http://asiaresearch.daiwacm.com/eg/cgi-bin/files/20120227kr_KoreaBanksSector.pdf#page=1 ASEAN: Digi.com (DIGI MK, M/c US$10.3bn, Underperform) – Has valuations factored in the impending Maxis threat? [Analyst: Ramakrishna Maruvada] Perhaps a harbinger of the competitive landscape ahead, Maxis announced that they would be defending its market share unequivocally in the year ahead. Making good on their threat, the firm has embarked on an aggressive and increasingly visible campaign especially on the international (IDD) lines. Rama acknowledges that the margin deterioration might not be immediate but he counters that there will be competitive intensity in Digi’s traditionally strong areas of migrant workers and youth markets. Perhaps a déjà vu from the Singapore experience in 2006. Within this context, Rama has downgraded the stock to an Underperform with 2013 AND 14 EPS cuts of 0.7% and 4% respectively. With an EV/EBOTDA of 23x, valuations are demanding and seems to ignore the impending competitive pressures. Moreover with continued balance sheet constraints, he adds that the likelihood of a special dividend is low and cuts his TP to RM 3.63. Link to report: http://asiaresearch.daiwacm.com/eg/cgi-bin/files/Digi120227.pdf#page=1 India: Capital Goods: How should one position? [Analyst: Saurabh Mehta] Capital goods sector [BSETCG Index] has u/pf the Sensex by 22%/16% over the last 6/12mths, due to a challenging macro environment and fuel/funding issues. Investors, rightly so, have been U/W-neutral. Over the past mth however, improvement in investor sentiment on capex cycle & reduction in risk aversion on expectation of policy aimed at improving infra spending seems to have brought the constructive focus back. Given current up-cycle is at a nascent stage and the recovery will probably filter through in a staggered manner, investors should selectively position themselves. Saurabh believes Infra will lead recovery followed by industrial capex till FY14 and power equipment may be the last to recover in FY15. He expects new sub-sectors to lead spending (railways, defense, mining) and prefers L&T (LT IN, PT 1630, O-PF) as the best diversified play on revival in infra/industrial capex. On the other end of the spectrum is BHEL (BHEL IN, PT 253, U-PF) where Saurabh remains negative as he believes co is in midst of a structural de-rating, owing to 2 critical issues (a) stagnant addressable market and (b) overcapacity in the BTG equipment market, both of which would lead to op margins declining by half over next 3 years. Japan: Japan Tobacco (2914 JP, m/c US$ 54.1b, Neutral >>O/pf, TP ) – upgrade as co shld be able to hike ASP & vol in overseas mkt [Analyst: Tokushi Yamazaki] Yamazaki-san raised his rating to Outperform from Neutral. He expects that the JT could hike the price and volume in the overseas market and see +10% per year growth on an EBITDA basis.