• Maintain NEUTRAL, with new MYR4.40 TP from MYR4.00, 0% upside, c.3% FY24F yield. Despite a higher 2024F CPO price environment, we believe Sime Darby Plantation is fairly valued, trading at 18.7x FY24F P/E – at the high end of its big-cap peer range of 16-19x.

• We see more upside risk for the sector now, with the looming El Nino and potentially escalating geopolitical risks relating to the Russia-Ukraine war and grains corridor. However, notwithstanding a strong El Nino and an inability to export any crops from the Black Sea, the fundamental outlook remains relatively unexciting. Supply is expected to come in strongly in 2024, while demand remains somewhat lacklustre. Stock/usage ratios are still comfortably above historical averages in 2024F.

• 2023 price assumptions unchanged, 2024 assumptions raised. While there is a high chance El Nino will be confirmed soon, we expect the impact on palm oil (PO) output to only be seen in 2024. As such, we make no changes to our 2023 CPO price assumption of MYR3,900/tonne. For 2024, if the El Nino is a moderate one, there would be an impact on supply – although not very significant – while prices could continue to be held back by lacklustre demand. We believe prices could be higher in 2H24 vs 1H24, as the impact of El Nino would only be seen from May/June onwards. We are therefore raising our 2024 and 2025 price assumptions to MYR3,900/tonne and MYR3,800/tonne respectively. If the El Nino turns out to be a strong one, we will review our price assumptions.

• We maintain our NEUTRAL sector weighting, with a tactically positive trading strategy. We believe higher CPO prices in 2024 would mean purer players would be looked upon more positively than integrated players. However, integrated players would provide a more stable earnings base and consistent dividend returns. Also, not all pure players would benefit equally, given the Indonesian tax structure and deteriorated exchange rate. Pure Indonesian planters would not benefit as much as pure Malaysian planters.

• We revise FY23-25F earnings by -24% to +14% post CPO price assumption revision and after updating our in-house FX assumptions.

• Valuation targets rolled forward. We retain our P/E targets for the large- cap Malaysian planters but roll forward our valuation targets to 2024. We assign an unchanged 18-20x P/E to the plantation divisions of the big-cap Malaysian planters in our SOP valuations.

• Our TP includes a 4% ESG discount, based on an ESG score of 2.8. SDPL is fairly valued, trading at 18.7x FY24F PE, at the high end of its big-cap peer range of 16-19x.

Source: RHB Research - 24 Jul 2023