Contrary to our earlier assumptions, the industry ASP has risen further month-on-month in anticipation of tighter supply and supernormal demand due to the pandemic. We highlight that SUPERMXs OBM distribution model could yield higher price and margins. Industry ASP over the next few months is now higher by between 5% and 15%, as opposed to the previous monthly 5% hike. With a diverse customer base, we expect SUPERMX to have better pricing power, potentially getting higher than industry average selling prices. Hence, we raised our FY20E/FY21E net profit by 11%/43%, to account for higher margins. TP is raised from RM7.60 to RM10.90 based on unchanged 26x CY21E EPS. Reiterate OP.

Dual-stream incomes from manufacturing and distribution. We gather that it is confident of raising ASP by between 5% to 10% each month from June till Dec 2020, vs. our previous expectation of 5% monthly increase from June to Sep 2020 indicating supply tightness have further propelled ASP higher. Specifically, Supermax is expected to gain from higher margins from both its gloves manufacturing and distribution. We expect higher margins going forward due to higher product mix skewed towards OBM distribution which accounts for 95% compared to 70% pre Covid-19 which we believe had caught us as well as the market by surprise at a time when supply is tight due to aggressive stockpiling of critical medical supplies including gloves. Supermax is getting enquiries from foreign government agencies, non-government organisations, retailers and restaurants chains. Amplifying the pent-up demand, buyers are paying between 30% to 50% deposits in advance to secure glove supply and timely delivery. From a conference call with its investor relations, we understand that demand has continued to climb over the past 2 weeks indicating that lead time is now 12 months compared to 10 months and order-book filled up to June 2021. This led to higher utilisation rate of >95% as compared to pre-COVID-19 level of 80-85%. Case in point is Supermax’s overseas distribution centres which are experiencing fast inventory depletion from the normal 4 months to within 6 weeks. Supermax expects the heightened demand to continue for the next 1 to 1.5 years.

Outlook. Plant 12 consists of Block A and Block B, each consisting of 8 double former lines with 2.2b pieces each (total 4.4b pieces). As of now, for Block A, its remaining 3 lines started commissioning in end March 2020 on top of the 5 lines already in commercial production. For Block B, all 8 lines are expected to be fully commissioned by 2H 2020. Upon full commercial production by 2H 2020, installed capacity will rise 13.4% to 26.2b pieces per annum.

Raised FY20E/FY21E net profit by 11%/43% after raising pre-tax margin assumption from 16%/18% to 17%/25%.

Undemanding FY21E PER valuation of 18x compared to earnings growth of >100%. Correspondingly, our TP is raised form RM7.60 to RM10.90 based on unchanged 26x CY21 revised EPS of 41.9 sen (at slightly above +2.0SD above the 5-year historical forward mean). We like Supermax because: (i) the stock is trading at an undemanding 18x FY21E EPS compared to expected earnings growth of >100%, and (ii) of its OBM model, where it can extract higher margin from distributor prices, compared to the OEM model at lower factory prices. Reiterate Outperform.

Key risk to our call is longer-than-expected commercial operations of new plants.

Source: Kenanga Research - 3 Jun 2020