Hong Kong Utilities 3 April 2018 Huaneng Renewables (958 HK) Target price: HKD3.35 (from HKD2.55) Share price (3 Apr): HKD3.04 | Up/downside: +10.2% Rerating on improving financials Dennis Ip, CFA (852) 2848 4068 Faster subsidy collection likely from the RPS and recovering RE Fund
[email protected] We expect positive FCF and continued decline in net gearing in 2018 Daniel Yang (852) 2848 4443 Upgrading to Outperform (2) from Hold (3); raising TP to HKD3.35
[email protected] What's new: We believe that the two recently released supportive policies Forecast revisions (%) should benefit Huaneng Renewables (HNR) with faster subsidy collection Year to 31 Dec 18E 19E 20E and improving financials, which were major market concerns about HNR. Revenue change 5.7 2.3 n.a. Net profit change 10.6 11.8 n.a. What's the impact: The upcoming RPS is asking grids to pay Core EPS (FD) change 14.0 15.2 n.a. renewable energy subsidies in advance. Recently, the Chinese Source: Daiwa forecasts government announced the launch of a Renewable Energy Portfolio (RPS) Share price performance in 2018. Although the main target of this programme is to lower wind/solar curtailment, which should help HNR record higher utilisation, we believe it (HKD) (%) 3.1 105 will also benefit wind IPPs through faster conversion of receivables, as the 2.9 96 renewable energy subsidy will be paid by local grids in advance for those 2.7 88 projects already included in the renewable energy subsidy catalogue. 2.5 79 2.3 70 More inflows likely into the RE Fund as captive power plants required Apr-17 Jul-17 Oct-17 Jan-18 Apr-18 to settle unpaid surcharges.