A surge in Covid-19 cases could also make it harder for central banks in Asia to stick to initial plans of normalization, but force some to keep policy more accommodative for longer. That can add to the risk of capital outflows faced by these countries, given the rising chance that the Federal Reserve could tighten policy sooner amid growing inflation pressure.
All of these headwinds to full recovery in the region could prompt more countries to reconsider the effectiveness of imposing extended lockdowns, and speed up vaccination rollouts, a factor that would allow them to reopen the economy, say economists. Singapore, which plans to ease travel restrictions later this year when it has fully vaccinated about 80% of its population, could be a good case to follow.
“The critical factor is how long and how strictly do governments have to manage movement controls or social distancing to keep the public-health issue at bay,” said Steven Cochrane, chief APAC economist at Moody’s Analytics in Singapore.
CTOS growth on track ---------------------- Tuesday, 03 Aug 2021
PETALING JAYA: CTOS Digital Bhd is expected to see healthy growth prospects on the back of strong demand for its products and services.The credit reporting agency noted that, for instance, its comprehensive portfolio review product is registering good take-up rates.
Meanwhile, other products such as eKYC (electronic know your customer), fraud detection application IDGuard Fraud Bureau, and digital solution CAD are also churning in higher income for the group’s key accounts segment. Its commercial segment, on the other hand, is expected to rebound once the lockdown ends.
CTOS serves three distinct types of customers – key accounts, commercial and direct-to-consumer.
Its key accounts segment comprises the group’s highest revenue-generating customers as well as other selected customers, such as those with complex requirements or well-recognised brands.
Its commercial segment, on the other hand, comprises the group’s Malaysian segment commercial customers other than key-accounts customers and all commercial customers included within the international segment, while its direct-to-consumer segment comprises the group’s retail consumers.
According to Nomura Securities Research, there is now more visibility on the segmental performance of CTOS following an investor group meeting it hosted with the company’s management.
The brokerage reiterated a “buy” call on CTOS, with a higher target price of RM1.80, compared with RM1.45 previously.
“We are more confident of CTOS’ segmental growth outlook following its recently reported results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021,” Nomura said.
Nomura adjusted its revenue estimates for CTOS for the financial years (FY) ending Dec 31, 2022 and 2023 up by 4% each, mainly coming from positive revisions in the key accounts segment and normalisation of the CCRIS (central credit reference information) fee waiver.
The brokerage’s earnings estimates for the group, on the other hand, were revised up marginally by 2% each for FY22 and FY23, as it conservatively built in some cost increases from headcount and new products development.
The new target price for CTOS is based a target price-earnings multiple to 55 times (from 45 times), and revised earnings per share of 3.28 sen for FY22.
On the group’s recent acquisition of a minority stake in RAM Holdings, Nomura said CTOS’ management believes there is room to realise incremental revenue/customer synergies from the rating agency, especially for its key accounts segment, which are looking for additional data and products (such as ESG ratings).
“RAM’s scoring and reports can augment CTOS’ data and can be offered to key accounts as a value-added solution. CTOS will be collaborating with RAM to explore these avenues.
“At the moment, given that CTOS’ stake in RAM is around 4.6%, it will not be equity-accounting RAM earnings in our view, but this might change in the future should CTOS increase its shareholding,” Nomura said.
According to Nomura, CTOS expected the results of the tax incentive review sometime in September-November 2021.
“On new products such as tenants screening and used vehicle reports, management mentioned that new products typically take one to two years for reaching mainstream usage,” it added.
For the first half of 2021, CTOS’ key accounts segment posted a growth run-rate of 24% year-on-year (y-o-y), and its comprehensive portfolio review product demand is seeing good take-up, and growth in revenue is contributed by other products such as eKYC, IDGuard Fraud Bureau, and CAD.
For the commercial segment, revenue for the first half of 2021 was up 10% y-o-y, and CTOS expected the slowdown in activations to reverse once the lockdowns end and activations/ transactions pick up.
For the direct-to-consumer segment, revenue for the first half of 2021 was up 104% y-o-y, as downloads of myCTOS score reports increased sharply from a very low base.
At this week price range, whoever wanted to sell have sold, those not selling aim for higher return. Next week political noises will reduce and eventually stabilised, by then the price likely will move upward...
CTOS said this raised its stake in BOL to 22.65 per cent from 20.00 per cent, expanding its foothold in Thailand's business decision-making solutions market.
"The acquisition will be fully funded by proceeds from the recent initial public offering (IPO). The 2.65 per cent shareholding adds on to CTOS Digital's earlier acquisition of a 20 per cent stake in BOL in October 2020," it said.
CTOS group chief executive officer Dennis Martin said BOL was the largest company information bureau in Thailand, with a 59 per cent market share in terms of revenue for the financial year ended December 31, 2020, based on IDC data.
"BOL continues to exceed our expectations and we are very pleased with the opportunity to increase our stake. BOL has an extensive database of business information online on over 1.6 million local businesses including Thailand's financial institutions, corporates, small medium enterprises and government agencies," said Martin.
This book is the result of the author's many years of experience and observation throughout his 26 years in the stockbroking industry. It was written for general public to learn to invest based on facts and not on fantasies or hearsay....
suprnoob
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Posted by suprnoob > 2021-07-30 10:29 | Report Abuse
wht happened to cheetos?