Tuesday, 20 March 2012

TASCO (TASCO MK, BUY, FV: RM2.33, Close: RM2.01)


Since we picked TASCO as our top buy among small cap logistics stocks under our coverage on 18 Oct 2011,  its  share price has surged  by  some  38%  to  its all-time intra-day high of RM2.05 yesterday. As macroeconomic conditions seem more being now coupled with the resilience of its 3rd party logistics (3PL) business, we are  raising revenue forecasts for this segment, as well as  volume growth for TASCO’s sea and air freight business. We are tweaking up our revenue and earnings forecasts by 7% for FY12 and 4%-8% for FY13 respectively, after which our FV goes up to  RM2.33 (previously RM2.18), based on an unchanged 6.5x FY12  PER. We maintain a BUY on TASCO, for its low PE of 4.2x vs the industry average PE of 7x.

Volume expands on better macroeconomic outlook. As the macroeconomic outlook turns more positive, TASCO has benefited from the pick-up in trade activities, especially in Asia and Japan, as well as on the domestic front.  Recall that the group posted strong earnings growth of 38% in FY11 on the back of resilient volume handled. The outlook for trade activities is improving, judging from the latest data  from Malaysia’s Department of Statistics, which showed  that Malaysia’s Jan 2012 exports to Japan, Asean and US improved by 26.6%, 1.2% and 1.1% y-o-y respectively. Leveraging on its Japanese major shareholder NYK Group’s global logistic network and expertise, we think TASCO will continue to display resilient growth, bolstered by its aggressive sales and marketing efforts in promoting its total logistics services to MNCs. We also gather from management that it saw some urgent shipments of E&E and FMCG products in 1Q, particularly from Feb-Mar. In addition, we believe the upcoming major sport events like the 2012 Olympics and Euro 2012 will help boost  the  shipment of LCD and  plasma  TVs via its sea and air freight services.  These developments  prompt us to  nudge  up our volume assumptions for  the company’s sea freight by 4% to 168,000 TEUs and air freight by 3% to 18,000 tonnes for FY12.

3PL leads the way. We expect the group’s 3PL business, providing comprehensive solutions encompassing warehousing, air, sea and land freight services, to continue to be the key growth driver. We gather that the group has minimal exposure to US and Europe, which helps fuel our optimism on the company. Besides, the group is shipping mainly consumer products with strong branding whose demand is fairly inelastic. With  a growing clientele and the fact that almost 96% of its current warehouse space is taken up, TASCO announced to Bursa yesterday that it had entered into a sale and purchase agreement with Port Tanjung Pelepas SB to buy 5 acres of land in PTP for RM5.5m cash. As the company is utilizing  internally generated funds, the land purchase  will not  greatly affect  its net gearing given that this is within our  capex  projection. In view of the healthy expansion of the  3PL  segment  and the  growing demand among MNCs to outsource their logistics requirements,  we are bumping up our  3PL  revenue forecast by 5% and 7%  for FY12-13 respectively. 

Source: OSK188 

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