CFA Institute Research Challenge Hosted in Bucharest
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CFA Institute Research Challenge Hosted in Bucharest Faculty of Finance, Banking, Insurance and Stock Exchange Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest Faculty of Finance, Insurance, Banking and Stock Exchange Valuation Date: 31.12.2018 Recommendation: SELL Stock Exchange: Bucharest Current Price: RON 21 Target Price: RON 18.4 Sector: Finance and Insurance Ticker: BVB Downside: -12.4% Industry: Securities and Commodities Exchange Key Figures The Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) is the only securities market operator in Romania. It Annual Dividend (RON) 1.69 was re-established in 1995 after the fall of the communist regime and went public on its own Regular market in 2010. 52w Low (RON) 20.9 52w High (RON) 30.0 INVESTMENT SUMMARY We issue a SELL recommendation with a 12 month target price of RON 18.4, representing a Avg. daily vol. (3 6,834 12.4% downside from its December 31st, 2018 closing price of RON 21. Our valuation is months) based on a dividend discount model which we cross-checked with a relative valuation Number of shares (mln) 8.04 approach. Equity Value (RON mln) 147.96 INVESTMENT HIGHLIGHTS Unpredictable fiscal and economic policies curb investors’ appetite. The government’s Free float (%) 100 announced decision to impose additional levies on banks and energy companies, which LTM P/E 16.6x represent roughly 60% of the stock exchange capitalization, impose heavier capital requirements on pension fund managers and allow for early withdrawal of contributors, led to a 11.21% drop of the main index of the stock exchange in one day. Even if such Investors’ Structure measures would not be fully implemented as initially announced, such sudden fiscal policy changes create mistrust for investors in the local economy who might adopt more of a 8.79% “wait-and-see” approach instead of active investing and trading which means lower 10.39% revenues for the stock exchange. The big jump to emerging market status will come later rather than sooner. It is clear that without being upgraded to emerging secondary market, the development prospects of the 50.09% local securities exchanges are almost non-existent. The upgrade is on the other hand dependent on having a solid number of significant IPOs. Although BVB estimates that this 30.73% would happen in 2019, no major IPOs are forecasted in the current period and given the rather unfriendly investor climate created by the latest fiscal and economic changes, we do Retail Pension funds not see the liquidity increase this year. Therefore, we estimate that only if the CCP project Investment funds Non-residents becomes operational and generates some revenues (i.e. in 2021) the market liquidity might rise to a sufficient level in order for BVB to be promoted to emerging market. At the same time, such upgrade would not bring immediate significant turnover increase from the supply side, i.e. increasing the number of issuers should develop as well. With 6 IPOs in the Valuation main inputs last 3 years vs. 27 on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2017 alone, the local capital market Beta 0.88 operator still needs to find the right levers for attracting new issuers. CoE 10.50% Central Counterparty project profitability will be capped by the limited development of Transactions growth rate 5.5% the overall local capital market. Considering the lack of sophisticated investors and low No IPOs (2019-2013) 10 liquidity of the local market (i.e. more than 10 times lower than the Warsaw Stock Start of derivatives market 2020 Exchange), our analysis shows that the CCP project is not sustainable at this stage. Emerging market upgrade Moreover, we estimate that the CCP implementation will be delayed as BVB needs to find year 2021 a second investor in the project as they will only contribute with RON 47 mln (approx. EUR 10 mln). Key Financials RON mln 2016 2017 2018 2019E 2020E 2021E 2022E 2023E Revenues 31.6 38.1 39.8 41.0 41.5 45.2 52.5 55.1 BVB stock price evolution (Jan 2016- EBIT (%) 19% 24% 22% 21% 19% 14% 23% 23% Dec 2018) EPS 1.0 1.5 1.3 1.4 0.8 1.1 2.0 2.2 37 Rev. g% 2.4% 20.5% 4.7% 2.9% 1.4% 8.9% 16.1% 5.0% 32 27 22 17 1/4/2016 7/4/2016 1/4/2017 7/4/2017 1/4/2018 7/4/2018 2 This report was made by Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies students with the sole purpose of taking part in the CFA Research Challenge Figure 1: Trading value by asset (2018) BUSINESS DESCRIPTION Background. Established in 1995, Bursa de Valori Bucuresti (BVB) is, since 2017, the only 2% securities exchange in Romania following its acquisition of the former derivatives 16% exchange, SIBEX, whose activity was discontinued and subsequently merged into BVB. With a total market capitalization of listed companies of approx. EUR 32 bln, it is the third largest securities exchange in the CEE region. Currently listed as a frontier market by MSCI and FTSE Russell, it has the prospect of being upgraded to an emerging market when the 84% liquidity criterion is met. Although a moving target, due to the specificities of the activity, the needed liquidity level of 15% in market capitalization is estimated to be reached by 2019. Shares and Units Bonds Structured Products Market features. The stock exchange offers a trading venue for asset classes such as Source: BVB Group equities, bonds, fund units, indices, certificates and warrants. BVB operates two markets, the Regular market (Premium and Standard) for mature companies and AeRO for SMEs Figure 2: Structure of revenues (2018) and start-ups. BVB has several subsidiaries operating in the post-trading, registry and 1% other services such as the management of the Investors’ Compensation Fund. The 13% company also provides data vending services and owns the Corporate Governance Institute, the latter not being included in the consolidated figures. Revenue structure. The largest revenue source for the company is from trading fees, TOTAL REVENUES accounting for approx. 60% of the company’s revenues, while post-trading services 26% RON 39.82 mln 60% ensure a stable share of 26% of revenues, with the balance completed by registry and other services. With 84% of total trading value, equities account for most of trading revenues which have risen with the number of IPOs and shows that continuing listings will lift volumes and thus revenues. Indices. BVB calculates 8 indices, the most significant one being the BET which currently Trading Post-trading Registry FCI&other comprises the 15 most traded stocks, with the exception of financial investment companies (SIFs), on the Regular Market. The main index (BET) is concentrated around Source: BVB Group Financial Statements energy and banking stocks. Figure 3: Evolution of BET INDEX in 2018 Historical growth sources. BVB developed mostly through new IPOs and bond issuances. The most significant listings have been those of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), namely 9500 energy companies Electrica, Nuclearelectrica and Romgaz, which drove up volumes, thus bringing closer the prospect of an upgrade to an emerging market status. Private home- 8500 grown companies, such as telecom operator Digi, hospital operator Medlife and fast-food 7500 franchisee Sphera Group, have also chosen to publicly offer shares. Another source of growth has been the rise in corporate bond issuances. Ten bond issuances took place in 6500 the last 2 years, proving that BVB can be an alternative to bank financing. More recently, another reason for BVB’s attractiveness has been the high dividend yield, which in the Source: Reuters case of some issuers went up to 23%. This is mostly due to a Ministry of Finance policy which demands that state majority-owned companies (SOEs) distribute at least 90% of Figure 4: Management their net profit to the shareholders. BVB ran various educational programs to enhance the Board of Directors demand side as well. However, it might be difficult to quantify the effect of such initiatives on the short-term, given the limited prospects for new major IPOs of SOEs to boost Lucian - Claudiu Anghel Gabriel Marica supply. Valerian Ionescu Octavian Molnar Strategy. With only eight local private medium-sized companies having announced their Robert-Cosmin Pana Otto Naegeli intention to list on the AeRo market, BVB is focusing on alternative ways of increasing the Claudia Gabriela Ionescu Dan-Viorel Paul supply of products and services. Thus, they are planning to expand the business by Radu Hanga creating a Central Counterparty (CCP) in 2019 to enable derivatives trading in stocks, FX, indices and power, but also to provide clearing services to the energy market operator Executive Officers (OPCOM) for the centralized bilateral contracts, market-continuous trading, which is Adrian Tanase basically an anonymous forward power market. The CCP project received the approval of Marius-Alin Barbu Virgil Stroia BVB’s shareholders, provided that an additional external equity participation of approx. Source: BVB Group EUR 6 mln is attracted while BVB will contribute with EUR 10 mln in equity. Should the CCP project be timely and properly implemented, it would become partially operational in Figure 5: Structure of Shareholders early 2020. Although in its early stage, the CCP in itself is not expected to be profitable, it 2% could bring additional revenues of up to EUR 3 mln in 2024 and EUR 5 mln by 2029. 17% CORPORATE GOVERNANCE 12% BVB is headquartered in Bucharest and has been listed on its own Regulated market since 69% the 8th of June 2010. The company has a share capital of RON 80,492,460 with a nominal share value of RON 10.