For leisure read

https://klse.i3investor.com/web/blog/detail/dragon328/2024-03-01-story-h-187411830-Genting_Malaysia_RWG_Soaring_High_in_the_Year_of_Dragon

200 million shares traded at RM3.95 in the last minute, big big funds.

Looks like big chunks of shares changing hands between major shareholders and foreign funds, or local institutions and foreign funds, besides call warrants issuing banks dumping all they had to press down closing price.

crazy volume of over 265 million volume transacted in last minutes

There is no point arguing it at this moment after it just delivered a weak set of results.

Lets see in 3 months time.

True that PBA has not gained enough investor confidence as its earnings record in the past few years is not consistent, and dividend so far has not been very good given the low water tariffs.

I believe after the water tariff is revised up and PBA starts to deliver solid earnings for 2 or 3 quarters then investors will have more confidence and give a higher PER.

It was the same case as in YTL Power. It was trading at unjustifiably low valuation of 5x PER last year, when most analysts played down on its prospects. But now analysts have to upgrade their target price and give a fairer PER of 10x to 15x, after YTLP delivered 3 consecutive of strong earnings.

I think once PBA delivers a good improved profit for Mar 2024 and reinforces the strong earnings in June 2024, then investors will have a different look at it.

In Q4 statement, PBA stated that it had about RM170m of capital allowance as of 31 Dec 2023 to set off against future taxable profits. So this will be enough to set off against most of the taxable profit in 2024 so the effective tax expense in 2024 will be very low like in 2023 when income tax expense was only RM4.7 million (cash tax payment was also about RM4.7m).

On deferred tax, PBA claimed positive deferred tax of RM44m in 2022 then it reversed some of it in 2023 and recognised negative deferred tax charge of RM34m. As a result, deferred tax liabilities increased from RM99m as of 31 Dec 2022 to RM128m as of 31 Dec 2023.

I am not sure how this deferred tax charge will affect PBA net profit going forward. Any accountant here who can advise?

@jackson1688888, you can argue that PER of 15x should only apply to growth stocks, but I can argue that PBA can be considered a growth stock as it has just secured a substantial hike in water tariffs, and hence its earnings for 2024 and 2025 will grow substantially, then 2026 earnings will grow organically based on water consumption growth in Penang.

Come 2027, it can apply for another round of water tariff hike as its average water tariff will still be among the cheapest in Peninsular Malaysia. Earnings will grow further when it secures another water tariff hike in 2027. Then by 2030, there will be another round of water tariff hike review. Not a growth stock?

Even the assumption of 15x PER only for growth stocks is also not entirely true. Take a look at Tenaga and PetGas, both earnings will only grow organically based on electricity demand and gas consumption in Peninsular. Why are they trading at PER of over 20x?

Even if I apply a lower PER of 10x, PBA should be worth RM3.90.

At 8x PER, PBA should be worth RM3.09

@jackson1688888, I don't think that because of a relatively smaller company like PBA, it does not deserve a PER of 15x.

For comparison, Ranhill which is comparable to PBA in size is trading at PER of over 25x.

Solarvest, a company smaller than PBA, is trading at PER of over 20x.

A lot of smaller companies are trading at much higher PER.

@Bullstock888, yes I concur with your view above.

PBA's Q4 was dragged down by negative deferred tax, a 180 degree change from positive deferred tax in Q3. This is non cash, and I will just ignore them.

PBA recorded PBT of RM68.4m in 2023, this would have been higher if the ICPT surcharge rate was reduced for the whole year, but it came into effect only from July 2023.

Operating cashflows before working capital changes and capex amounted to RM112 million in 2023, which was very strong.

Post water tariff hike from 1st Feb 2024, PBA expects revenue to increase by RM86 million a year. Assuming operating costs remain unchanged, PBT will increase by RM86m.

I take a more conversative approach and assume operating costs to increase by 10% or RM27m in 2024, and so I expect PBT to jump by about RM60m to RM128 million.

Ignoring deferred tax effect, the normal income tax should be minimal as PBA has got enough capital allowance to offset against future taxable profit, so net profit will come to also about RM128 million or EPS of 39 sen.

PBA is a well run utility company and should enjoy PER of 15x (note Tenaga at 23x PER, PetGas at PER 20x), so PBA may be worth RM5.80 a share post water tariff hike.

@Activetrader, I concur with your view above.

Genm is going to see multiple re-rating factors soon.

Tenaga just announced its Q4 result with net profit drop to RM480m, making the full year net profit at RM2.77b, lower than concesus. EPS for 2023 comes to 48 sen, making Tenaga trading at a PER of above 23x.

This makes YTL Power relatively cheap at PER of lower than 10x on FY2024 earnings. I think this will make it easy for foreign funds to make a choice in terms of exposure to the utility sector in Malaysia.

Hence, even if YTL Power trades up to RM6.30 at 15x PER, it will still be cheaper than its peers like Tenaga, PetGas and Dialog.

@pang72, YTL is still playing catchup with YTL Power which has gone up 5x from RM0.70 to RM4.20, YTL will surely go up from RM0.50 to RM3.00 in time.

Then both will continue scaling new heights!!

While the hyperscalers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft are trying to do load shifting between their data centres around the world to reduce carbon emission, why not just shift some of the data centre loads to YTLP's Kulai data centre park which is powered by 100% RE?

Posted by Mabel > 5 hours ago | Report Abuse

https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2024/02/27/ai-explodes-data-centre-energy-use

Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang has said AI has hit a “tipping point.” He has also said that the cost of data centres will double within five years to power the rise of new software.

The fact of the matter is that AI data centre is going to be big, or is already very big, as evidenced from Nvidia's latest quarterly results that showed that Nvidia derived about 80% of its revenue from AI data centre division, about USD18 billion and growing.

YTLP's collaboration with Nvidia at its Kulai data centre park is already starting to see real progress as YTL has been carrying out the infrastructure and construction work there and Nvidia has promised to supply the highly sougth-after H100 GPUs once the site is ready.

YTLP in the latest analyst briefing after the Q2 quarterly result reiterated good progress of the AI data centre project, with the first phase of AI data centre to be ready by end 2024 and a 100MW capacity target in the medium term.

As I do not know the details of the deal, I can only analyse from a top-down view of a general project basis. Assuming an equity IRR of 15% for the project, total project costs of RM20b, debt financing of 80%, and 20 years of operation and cashflows, I get a starting revenue of RM2.5 billion a year and a net profit of RM650m at initial years rising gradually to RM2.0 billion a year after project loans are paid off after 10 years.

So net profit may average RM1.3 billion a year for the 100MW AI data centre project, not too far off from RHB analyst's projection of RM1.2 billion a year.

If someone keeps shouting to want facts & figures, the relevant info is already out in the public. Please do your own analysis and projections to get the numbers you want. Do not simply shout scams or liars to the air.

I suspect this guy may be from a competing company on data centre business in Malaysia, and talk down on YTLP's prospects on the AI data centre, but he wouldn't get any benefit in doing so as real data centre business clients would not listen to such nonsense.

Then he might have sold off his shares in YTLP and hence is trying to talk bad and press down the share price of YTLP. Again, he would not achieve anything out of this, as his words have no bearing in this forum by simply talking blank.

Whatever it is, I will not bother nor respond to this guy anymore.

Below is the Bursa announcement by YTL Power on the collaboration with Nvidia for the development of AI data centre at its Kulai data centre park. PMX also announced the deal to be RM20 billion on the same day. This shows to me and to the market that the deal is real, and not a fishy project with no official announcement as claimed by certain parties with malicious intent.

Of course, there was not much detail of the deal in the Bursa announcement, as any business deal info is sensitive and confidential. You wouldn't expect the company to announce all the details of the deal including returns, % capital contribution, form of collaboration to the public, as it would jeorpadise the business negotiation with potential clients later.

https://www.bursamalaysia.com/market_information/announcements/company_announcement/announcement_details?ann_id=3407239

Genting Singapore weak Q4 result was mainly due to kitchen sinking activities where the company booked in higher impairment for trade receivables, penalties and write-offs, and higher non-cash depreciation charges.

I see no alarm over Genting Singapore business as its cash balance ballooned to SGD3.9 billion as of 31 Dec 2023, and China tourists to Singapore are back to 100% pre-pandemic level. Maybank analyst expects the high impairment on trade receivables and penalties will not recur in 2024 and beyond.

I still see Genting Singapore to grow its EBITDA towards SGD1.4 billion by FY2025.

So what if YTLP were to fund the entire project cost?

YTL Power has about RM1.5-2.0 billion of cash at the holding level and strong operating cashflows of RM6 billion a year. It will have no problem coming out with the equity money of RM4b to fund this, and I expect no issue of it getting lenders to lend to the project.

YTLP is innovative in finding funding for its projects. Last time for building the Malaysian power plants, YTLP went for IPC listing to get billions of ringgit funding well before the power plants were commissioned.

Think twice before you want to tarnish the image of a great company.

Why are some parties so hung up with capital contribution to AI data centre?

YTL Power will come out with all the capital money required to fund the traditional data centre secured with SEA Group, the 1st phase capital was announced to be RM1.5 billion and YTLPI has secured necessary funding of 80% to fund it. Lenders were comfortable with the project returns then only they would lend 80% to the project.

For all the utility projects YTLP was involved before, such as the Paka & Pasir Gudang power stations, the Jordan power plant etc, in which case didn't YTLP come out with all the necessary funding to fund the projects? And each has proven great success!

PMX has already mentioned the total capital outlay for the AI data centre project would be RM20 billion, and various foreign news sources also stated similar figures of USD4.2 billion. Still certain parties are not convinced with this. Why we care if YTLP were to contribute RM10b or RM20b of capital to fund the project, as long as it is a good project in high demand now, the project will give good returns, as what we can see from latest Nvidia results that show increasing revenue from its AI data centre business.

The press statement on the AL data centre collaboration between YTLP and Nvidia typically does not give much detail on the deal. I also will not bother to speculate on the % shareholding of each and % capital contribution to the JV. As I always trust the ability of YTL Power management to strike good deals that give double-digit IRR.

In any case, the market has not given any value to the AI data centre business which has yet to contribute any earnings. As written in my article, YTL Power current earnings base of RM3.4 billion or EPS of 42 sen can be sustained with its existing operations from PowerSeraya, Wessex, Jordan and Jawa Power.

Taking the more conservative valuation by Mr. OTB at 12x PER, YTL Power should be worth RM5.04 based on current earnings base.

I am a little more bullish to peg a higher PER of 15x, as I see more foreign funds will come into Bursa later this year, and KLCI general market PER is 15x. I see no reason why YTLP should be trading below the general market PER of 15x, as it is big, liquid and growing. I see good chance of it hitting RM6.30 before AI data centre business starts contributing earnings.

I will only assess the earnings potential of the AI data centre segment after it starts reporting profit in 2H 2024.

@jeffchan1901, on the issue of weak ringgit, it is really a matter of strong US dollars and US Fed actions over the next few months. US Fed has aggressively raised interest rates to 5.5% in past 12 months, higher than our OPR now by about 200 bps. Obviously some foreign funds will pull back funds to the US to enjoy the much higher bond yields there, and that puts pressure on emerging market currencies including ringgit. Singapore dollar is more or less pegged to the US dollars with MAS managing it well to contain inflation there.

Foreign funds have been pouring money into Bursa Malaysia since early Jan 2024, in fact towards end of Dec 2023. We can see YTL and YTL Power share prices started climbing up by 5%-10% towards end Dec 2023 after both were included into KLCI component in mid Dec, so there was a lag of about 2 weeks.

Foreign funds typically come into Malaysia when they see upsides in the currency over next few months. Economists are predicting ringgit to appreciate to RM4.50-4.40 by end 2024, that is likely to be inline with the timeline for US Fed to start cutting interest rates in 2H 2024. When US Fed starts cutting rates, now expected to start in June, bond yields there will drop and some funds will find it less attractive to hold and take profit as bond prices climb up (when yields drop). Some of these funds will look for higher returns elsewhere.

I am confident many of these funds will find Malaysia stock market very attractive, especially with the backdrop of an appreciating ringgit in next few months. Say if ringgit appreciates by 10% to RM4.40 level, foreign funds that buy into Bursa stocks now will enjoy additional upside of 10% when they exit end of 2024 when ringgit indeed goes up to RM4.40 level.

Statistics shows that foreign funds still accumulated shares in YTL Power in early February, while they may have paused in past 2 weeks after the share price hit RM4.24 peak. I expect new wave of foreign funds will pour into YTL and YTL Power next month after these 2 stocks are officially included into MSCI.

If you are not expert on AI data centre, do not simply put up sabotage statements.

I am not expert on this area, so I have not written much about it. But some analysts have become more bullish than us on this new business area, forecasting that this segment may contribute RM1.2 billion of net profit to YTLP every year from 2026.

@ks55, I am afraid you are wrong in your statements above.

Nvidia derives about 80% of its revenue from AI data centre business, the same it is in collaboration with YTLP to develop in Kulai.

Nvidia will be co-investing in this new AI data centre, it is malicious to say that YTLP will have to come out with all the capital. Irresponsible statement.

WOW PBA powerful rally.

Finally consolidation is over and the market has realised how undervalued this counter is

Expect new waves of foreign buying on YTL and YTL Power after 29 Feb when both counters are officially included in the MSCI index

@Agjl, yes indeed finally the market appreciates the potential of MCement, as I have long been advocating for its dominant market share in Peninsular and softening coal prices

YTL Corp earnings surprised on the upside, with better than expected earnings from cement and hotels divisons.

But YTL Power earnings also beat most analysts' expectation, with continued strong earnings from PowerSeraya, plus a wild card in its AI data centre business which some analysts forecast may contribute net profit of RM1.2 billion a year to YTLP from 2026

Indeed, YTL Corp's results surprised on the upside, with better than expected earnings from cement and hotels divisions.

But YTL Power earnings are also better than most analysts' expectation, with continued strong earnings from PowerSeraya plus the wild card in AI data centre business. Some analysts forecase net profit contribution of up to RM1.2 billion a year from data centres to YTLP every year from 2026

Post removed.Why?

Hong Leong sum-of-parts valuation is RM6.16 for YTLP

Post removed.Why?

@2721, yes Wessex financials are a little hard to understand, especially the provisions for index-linked bonds. It is difficult to have a good forecast for each quarter to come.

But these provisions are non cash in nature, so it does not affect the current cashflows, but have an impact on accounting profits.

I suggest we just focus more on its operating profits which will soon turn around after it secures another round of water tariff hike for financial year starting from 1 April 2024 to 31 Mar 2025.

The provisions for index-linked bonds are linked to some inflation index in the UK, so as inflation cools off in the UK in coming quarters, I expect such provisions for ILBs will gradually come down.

Agjl, MCement as you can see reported substantially higher earnings for Q2. I expect full year EPS to hit 35 sen, if we apply a fair PER of 15x for its dominant market share of cement in Malaysia, it should be worth RM5.25

MCement 1H FY2024 operating cashflows (before working capital changes and capex) were very strong at RM456 million, annualised to RM900 million as I forecast before. Capex for 1H was about RM100m, so full year free cashflows may top RM700 million or 53 sen per share. At free cashflow yield of 7%, MCement may be worth RM7.63 per share.

YTL REIT and YTL broadly delivered better than expected results for Q2

https://klse.i3investor.com/web/blog/detail/dragon328/2024-02-22-story-h-188247094-YTL_YTL_Power_Ended_Year_2023_with_a_Bang

Mcement delivered better than expected results for Q2

https://klse.i3investor.com/web/blog/detail/dragon328/2024-02-22-story-h-188247094-YTL_YTL_Power_Ended_Year_2023_with_a_Bang

YTL delivered better than expected results for Q2

https://klse.i3investor.com/web/blog/detail/dragon328/2024-02-22-story-h-188247094-YTL_YTL_Power_Ended_Year_2023_with_a_Bang

As projected, YTL Power delivered another set of excellent results for Q2. My analysis is as follow.

https://klse.i3investor.com/web/blog/detail/dragon328/2024-02-22-story-h-188247094-YTL_YTL_Power_Ended_Year_2023_with_a_Bang

hello, INdonesia has got 270 million population, if you divide the GDP by the population, Indonesia GDP per capital is only USD4,800, while Malaysia is already more than USD11,000 per capital

Keep lobbying for AA and enriching low cost airlines can make us a high income nation??

So narrow minded

If what he said made any sense, he won't be sidelined. Total nonsense to me.

I don't agree with the argument that the interest payments for the HSR project would be more than buying air tickets for every KL people to travel to Singapore, this was obviously speaking for the airline industry.

First, the project costs will be mainly borne by the private consortium, not the government. The government will likely only look into land acquisition, the rest of the project costs will be financed by private consortium with cheap money from China or Japan. Hence there is no issue arising for our government to carry huge amount of debts and pay high interests. So the statement itself is false.

Secondly, air tickets may not come cheap when you need them. Very often than not, an air ticket may cost you a bomb when you need to book one to Singapore or back, especially during festive seasons or important events or on emergency. Furthermore if you look into the statistics, how many travellers who take flights between KL and Singapore are leisure travellers? I think the bulk of them are on business or lone travellers. It costs over RM1000 for a family of four to fly from KL to Singapore or vice verse, and takes over 3 hours on total travelling time, including the 2-hour pre-flight check in time. It only costs RM70-100 for a family to drive from KL to JB.

Thirdly, the argument that the government would rather save the money on HSR and channel it to other facilities to the people like hospitals or schools is again false, as the government is not funding the HSR projects. Instead, when the HSR takes off, it will encourage more economic activities, more tourists from Singapore, more expats to stay in KL, more multi-national corporations to set up regional HQ in KL, help to increase property prices in the Kland Valley and areas surrouding HSR stations, promote more inter-state tourism activities especially to states with HSR stops etc. All these will add more tax income to the government, and the multiplying effect from such will be a lot more than the interest payment for the HSR project.

LRT and MRT projects in the Klang Valley are not viable, but these are essential infrastructure that the government ought to provide to the people.

You try to terminate MRT lines and see, millions of people will suffer. Public roads in KL will be even more jam packed.

This looks like a propaganda by Japanese consortium who have pulled out from the HSR race to blackmail the project. They think that the project will not be feasible without government funding, and they could not get any from the government so they pulled out of the bid.

It may be that their proposal is not good enough to make it feasible, their cost may be double of that from Chinese maker, and they may not be innovative enough in terms of revenue models.

I see HSR is the way to go for us to fast-track our race to become a high-income nation, and I do not think that we need to be a high income nation before we can consider HSR. Indonesia has already made a HSR line up and running, Thailand is already considering HSR as well.

There are merits in the HSR proposal. For one, the multiplying effects from the construction contracts may allow over RM100 billion of economic benefits to flow through the various supply chains for the project - construction materials, construction workers and labour force, various supporting industrial and workshops, property development around each HSR station, thousands of job creation during construction period and operational phase, tourism spill-over to areas along the HSR track etc.

HSR would provide a vital option for travellers between KL and Singapore, now only relying on inefficient air flights often packed and expensive during peak seasons. The amount of time saved during the journey is vital for business travellers. Just imagine, business travellers can do a day trip between KL and Singapore by taking a 90 min train from KL to Singapore, having meetings in Singapore and then commute back to KL in 90 mins to have dinner at home. And along the HSR journey, business travellers can have precious time to sit comfortably in the train doing some reading and preparation for meetings ahead. 1 hour of business hours saved in travelling for a million passengers will be a million hours of manhours saved for more productive work, rather than on wasteful travelling and waiting.

Singapore property prices are at least 7 times higher than that in KL. With the HSR, many expats can choose to stay in KL to enjoy the much lower rental and commute by HSR to Singapore for work (if there is affordable monthly tickets available). There will be more demand from expats and Singaporeans for good quality properties in the Klang Valley, this will help to fill the big gap in property prices between KL and Singapore. Many existing property owners in the Klang Valley will see their property prices appreciating substantially.

For leisure travellers, HSR will be a good option if they travel alone or just in small groups (2-3 pax) especially during festive seasons like CNY. We are seeing more and more cars on the road in North-South highway, and it could take up to 8 hours to drive from JB to KL on days before CNY or Hari Raya. Rather than spending endless hours on the highway, many may be willing to spend a few hundred ringgit on HSR just once or twice a year to have a comfortable 90 min ride.

We would be losing out to our neighbours in ASEAN if we still didn;t do the HSR. We were the first to propose HSR project some 10-15 years ago when the proposed cost was just less than RM15 billion for the 350km KL-Singapore HSR, then there were many critics too to try to kill off the project, many from the airlines and bus industry. Now the same groups of people are coming out to shout and doubt on the feasibility of the HSR, trying to kill it off again.

But I always believe in the end common sense prevails, considering the huge value this HSR project will bring to the country.

Be careful. HSR by private sector may be not feasible.
https://www.sinchew.com.my/?p=5405022

@cgtan2020, as pmed you, Sembcorp's 2H Gas profit was lower by SGD61m than 1H Gas Profit. I think it is primarily due to two reasons: 1) The pool prices in 2H were generally lower without much spike after TPC was implemented from 1st July 2023, so Sembcorp could not benefit from long generation into the pool, which gave it almost SGD30 million of extra profit per quarter in the 1H 2023, 2) Sembcorp has gradually increased its exposure to longer term (10-18 years) power purchase contracts with large industrial customers, which typically fetch slightly lower gross margin compared to smaller retails contracts that last for 6 months to 24 months.

@cgtan2020, I don't have enough info to make a meaningful comparison of Sembcorp's 1H and 2H results.

The headlines say its 2023 2H earnings were 15% higher than 2022 2H, and I do not know if its 2023 2H earnings were higher or lower than 2023 1H earnings.

May need to wait for its corporate presentation slides or analysts' briefing notes to come out then only can get more info.

Anyway, Sembcorp or Keppel has a lot more other assets like renewable energy assets overseas and Keppel has sizable property division and data centre REIT, so the results may not reflect entirely on PowerSeraya's performance. We need to only focus on their Singapore power business.

Both companies are optimistic of their Singapore power business division for next 2-3 years, that's what I was looking for.

Sembcorp's strong results speak well of PowerSeraya's prospects.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/singapores-sembcorp-industries-full-year-profit-jumps-2024-02-20/

Berjaya's proposal offers nothing better. They just propose setting up MLFF at less toll roads so the cost can be lowered by 30%. Furthermore, it proposes for the MLFF infra to be built by each highway concessionaires so that Berjaya will not need to come out with capital. It just wants to be a toll collecting agent and earn a commission.

Posted by xiaochen > 38 minutes ago | Report Abuse

@Paul Tan
The possibility is there. Thanks for giving hint.

Berjaya to challenge YTL for MLFF highway toll project?
https://soyacincau.com/2024/02/19/berjaya-challenge-ytl-mlff-highway-toll-project/

Profit taking in a long rally is normal. I see quite many people took profit on YTLP around RM4.00-4.20 as that was their first target after getting 200%-300% profit. I have nothing to comment on the profit taking as it is entirely normal for investors to lock in handsome profit. The current share price weakness seems to be a good chance for these people to buy back.

Irrespective of the share price fluctuations, I always fall back to fundamentals. As long as the earnings continue to grow, share price appreciation will follow. Simple as that. Let the numbers in the upcoming quarterly results speak for the company prospects.

I see good chances for us who got it low around RM0.70 to get 7 bags pretty soon, before we look at a 10-bagger.

I see a

British inflation held flat at 4.0% for Jan 2024, which is a good sign for Wessex to turn around sooner.