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DKSH should still be a strong company - felicity

Tan KW
Publish date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016, 09:50 AM
Tan KW
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Good.

Thursday, December 1, 2016 

 
 
I know I do owe some of you some of my opinion on DKSH. It has done well for the 2Q16 registering RM20.4 million net profit. However, that number has dwindled to RM5.4 million in its 3Q16, which can be shocking for some shareholders as we may not be used to such volatility for a company like DKSH. To be frank, there should not be much seasonality in this business, but I believe the quarter with Hari Raya could have impacted it as it is in the distribution business.

Other than that, there should not be much of a reason for its profits to be that way except that it took a much higher provision for impairment in receivables of RM9.72 million (see below). While it is not a good thing for the company, I guess it sometimes an unavoidable thing - being part of business.

The company took a RM9.72 million impairment charge for 3Q16
For those that are worried over this, I do not think this is a concern.

I actually have someone who asked me and being concern over its low cash in the balance sheet. Its cash as shown below was left at RM9.674 million. Again, I do not think that it is a cause for concern as DKSH certainly has short term working capital funding from banks. It may just happen that for its closing 3Q16, its cash position seemed to be on the low side.

Cash at RM9.7 million
Because of the nature of its business, do not expect DKSH to have very high profit margin - as it is more of a trading company. I would however be happy if it is able to manage that better. It did better in 2Q16 as compared to 3Q16.

For DKSH or many companies for that matter, we should not be too concerned over its quarter to quarter results but more of its medium to long term fundamental.

It does provide guidance and below is what it says. It does provide a decent to positive outlook of its future.

The reason I own DKSH is that it does have a certain moat as its actual competitors in terms of what it can do is not that many. It is a distributor, not a retailer. Retailers are getting challenges from e-commerce, but DKSH should be able to survive that as its business is more of a B2B rather than B2C.

Further, if one is to look at its reasoning for its growth, the second reason is a very strong reason - companies are more and more looking at doing ONLY what it does best. Which means especially the foreign importers, they will focus on using companies like DKSH to do the market expansion, distribution rather than doing it themselves. This is a global trend now and moving forward.
 
 

 

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Henry HO

Thank you Felicity for this write-up on DKSH...
For the 3Q2016 Results...
DKSH Revenue is RM 1,256,938,000.
Profit is RM 5,414,000 only.Gross profit margin at 0.4%!!!!!!Really paper thin profit margin...If revenue goes down to RM1bil...DKSH could be at a loss...

2016-12-02 10:36

cjcj

Henry, this is mainly a one-off doubtful debt provision for one customer (9.72m) which drag down the profit. Please study and fully understand before comment. Thank you.

2016-12-02 11:40

sumato88

This is a misunderstanding, the co always mark up a margin for a product that they distribute, typically gross profit margin is about 8-9% and I think 9M16 gross profit margin is closer to 9-10% after the change of telco clients. So for rm5.5bn revenue, gross profit should be about rm495-550m. This profit is very certain. The co core operating cost was about rm400m in fy15, which management mentioned there were some startup cost for moving office and distribution centers. So the actual operating cost should be lower and the key is how do they manage the operating cost going fwd when revenue do not grow. If revenue continue to grow 5-7% p.a. (This is the 10 yr historical growth rate), the co will make additional rm21m-27m gross profit. If the co manage to control its operating cost which it seems to be stable, according to the recent quarter results, the incremental gross profit will flow to the bottomline. Well, some may ponder why the operating cost will not grow more than revenue. The logic is simple, you have a truck deliver 10 products to AEON JUSCO, next mth u secure new client or new product to distribute to the same channel. So do u think the cost will increase like the volume increase? The answer is no, u probably will only incur additional 60% cost for a dollar additional gross profit. That's the beauty of a distribution biz, the operating leverage is very good, as long as u can manage the operating cost which DKSH seems to be able to. Exceptional provision for doubtful debt is indeed bad to the p&l giving its thin net margin. But historical trend proved that the receivable risk is low, as I mentioned earlier, the avg provision for doubtful debt over the past 5 years was only rm0.2m per annum. So how can we call the biz model risky when it's revenue is in the billions.

2016-12-02 11:44

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