- We are maintaining our rating on Public Bank Bhd (PBB) at HOLD with an unchanged fair value of RM16.90/share. This is based on an unchanged FY13F’s ROE of 21.7% fair P/BV of 3.0x.

- PBB recently announced that 30.94% of its issued shares were held by foreigners. The percentage is computed based on the total number of PBB shares in issue and after excluding shares bought back and retained as treasury shares as at 31 March 2013.

- PBB said as the percentage of shareholdings of foreigners of 30.94% exceeded PBB's maximum foreign shareholding limit of 30.00%, and pursuant to the Securities Industry (Central Depositories)(Foreign Ownership) Regulations 1996, 30.00% of the issued and paid-up share capital of PBB which were held by foreigners as at 31 March 2013 would be entitled to all rights and entitlements attached to the shares.

- All PBB "Foreign" shares held by foreigners as at 31 March 2013 would be entitled to all rights and entitlements attached to the shares.

- However, 0.94% of the issued and paid-up share capital of PBB held by foreigners as at 31 March 2013 and which were PBB "Local" shares would be entitled to the rights and entitlements attached to the shares except for voting rights.

- PBB further announced that as at 31 March 2013, 28.84% of the issued shares of PBB are "Foreign" shares. The percentage is computed based on the total number of shares in issue and after excluding shares bought-back by PBB and retained as treasury shares as at 31 March 2013.

- PBB is expected to release its 1QFY13 results this week, with a targeted release over lunchtime sometime in the middle of this week. There is no Analysts’ Briefing as is historically the case for 1Q. We expect 1QFY13 to be slightly lower than consensus’ net earnings of RM4,189mil and our earnings forecast on an annualised basis, but this is in-line with a historically slow 1Q. PBB is not expected to announce any dividend in 1Q, as per its historical trend.

- With PBB’s share price having appreciated strongly over the past few months, the fair value now represents less than a 15% upside from the current share price. We are maintaining our rating at HOLD. We expect the shareprice to sustain given its seemingly less risky profile on the back of its continued focus on asset-backed lending, and the predictable nature of its earnings.

Source: AmeSecurities