2Q17 #’s – 10 thoughts
So I’ve gone through as many listed company results as possible over the past few weeks and not just Thailand but most of ASEAN, given that I do only comment on Thai related companies here, comments will remain Thai specific.
- Without a doubt Thailand had the worst performance amongst all the countries in the region for 2Q with profit numbers down -22% YoY and even stripping out finco’s and energy it was still -18%. If you were to take it further and strip out several of the one time gains that can be seen in the from investment sales, acquisitions etc then the picture only gets worse.
- For Agribusiness and Food & beverage, other than the chicken related companies (ex CPF) it looks like a survival situation for all companies. If the smaller food players can’t scale their bargaining power is continually declining with retailers and they are suffering
- Home and Offices had a blood bath, its been an ongoing trend with HMPRO doing their own in house products and IKEA being the roaring success that it is
- Fashion – similar to home and offices, another blood bath, good ol sahapat group companies haven’t figured out that the world has moved on and they had better get their act together.
- Banks, we may as well start chanting NPL’s, NPL’s, NPL’s hoo-ha. KTB dragged the entire sector down but it’s a fact that NPL’s continued to do well, no surprises with TISCO’s performance with the acquisition of Standard Chartered Retail, but something positive seems to be happening with CIMBT and TMB
- Non-bank financials, one of the few sectors to look quite ok driven by KTC, MTLS, SAWAD and GL. The one nagging question I’ve had for the past few years specifically toward MTLS and SAWAD is how the hell can they still have the lowest NPLs in the finance industry given that they are targeting the most subprime of all customers?
- Insurance – it’s dead. This sector is primarily driven by BLA’s performance more than any other companies but with yields where they are, insurance companies will struggle to make a profit.
- Automotives – GROWTH! Oh wait, strip out AH’s acquisition gain and the numbers don’t look as sexy, regardless the bottom is in.
- Property development – GROWTH!! Oh wait, strip out the magical BS that PACE put on their P&L, wouldn’t we all love to tell clients “hey we know what the investment is worth, so we’ll mark it to market now instead of in 5-7 years, oh and believe all our ‘independent’ assumptions”
- Healthcare – RECOVERY! Oh wait, strip out BDMS’s sale of BH shares and it’s the same story nothing special…
Bo Stenberg
Good job.