Investment Highlights

• We attended Media Prima's (MPR) Investor Day “Inside Out DC” where the company shared the latest developments on its digital and e-commerce segments. Attendees went on a tour of the CJ WoW Shop studio where we watched a live broadcast of the show. There was also a Q&A session with the management of each MPR segment.
• Key takeaways from the session are as follows:

1. Sharing of printing facilities and distribution with Karangkraf: The News Straits Times Press (NSTP) has recently entered a collaboration with Karangkraf’s subsidiary Ultimate Print (UP), with regards to printing and distribution of newspapers since October 2018. UP utilizes the printing operations at NSTP’s Prai plant where both NSTP and KK publications are printed, while NSTP distributes the newspapers to the Northern region, part of northern Perak and the East Coast region. The collaboration is aimed at rationalizing NSTP’s printing operations to more efficiently use its physical assets while optimizing operating costs. The net benefit to NSTP from the collaboration is around RM2-3mil annually. Meanwhile, NSTP’s Shah Alam printing plant is currently running at roughly below 50% capacity.

2. Rev Asia to operate Mashable Southeast Asia (SEA):

Rev Asia has entered into an agreement with US-based digital media company Ziff Davis to run Mashable SEA. Mashable SEA will localize Mashable’s global content focused on culture, technology and entertainment with the addition of original content specifically tailored for regional audiences across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. This move enables Rev Asia to generate digital advertising revenue by providing sponsored content solutions to advertisers regionally.

3. Collaboration with Dailymotion: MPR recently inked a collaboration with Dailymotion, a video-sharing technology platform, in line with its efforts to expand digital reach and allow for effective monetization of its video content. Dailymotion is multi-device compatible via web, mobile and connected TV. MPR will first showcase its live stream shows on Dailymotion and later upload all videos across its TV, radio, print and digital segments onto the platform. This is on top of its move to cease its subscription model for it’s over-the-top (OTT) platform tonton and its collaboration with YouTube, which allows for reduced platform operating costs and enable revenue generation from programmatic advertising.

4. Partnership with Kitamen to boost eSports industry: Media Prima Digital (MPD) has signed a one-year memorandum of understanding to partner with local eSports company, Kitamen, to boost the development of the eSports industry. MPD CEO Rafiq Razali highlights the industry’s potential, saying: “Video gaming in Malaysia is worth RM600mil–RM700mil per year while eSports’ worth is only a fraction of it but this is growing exponentially.” Meanwhile, following the announcement of a RM10mil allocation for eSports in Malaysia’s Budget 2019, the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) echoed the sentiment on eSports being an important growth sector, sharing that Malaysia has an estimated 2.4mil eSports enthusiasts with the country ranking #21 in global game revenue estimates for 2017 with US$587mil. MPD also currently runs an online portal in collaboration with MDEC known as MyGameOn, which was launched in November 2017, providing news, reviews and events for the local and international gaming scene.

• We maintain our HOLD recommendation on Media Prima with unchanged forecasts and fair value of RM0.47/share pegged to a PB multiple of 0.7x as we view that the recent developments would not materially impact our earnings forecast. We remain cautious on the company due to: i) the hazy operating environment for its TV segment upon analogue switch-off targeted for 1QCY19, ii) sustained decline in print circulation, and as, iii) the monetization of digital initiatives remains challenging.

Source: AmInvest Research - 9 Nov 2018