Friday, 18 January 2013

CIMB Group Holdings - Stake sales in non-core assets


The group has finalised the sale of its 51% interests in both CIMB Aviva & CIMB Aviva Takaful to Khazanah Nasional Berhad at a total consideration of RM1,110m (RM1,066.5m in cash and RM43.5m in shares in a new insurance holding company, Renggis Ventures S/B).  We are positive on these sales as they are seen as unlocking the group’s value as the increase in equity from the oneoff sales gain above will further support the group’s balance sheet growth over the next 12-24 months. We are maintaining our target price of RM8.20, which translates to a 2.0x FY13 PBV. Our TP also implies a FY13 PER of 12.7x. We reaffirm our OUTPERFORM rating on CIMB.

Disposing CIMB Aviva.  CIMB has reached an agreement with Khazanah Nasional Berhad to sell its 51% stake in CIMB Aviva Assurance Berhad (a life insurance company) and 51% stake in CIMB Aviva Takaful Berhad for a total consideration of RM1.1b in a move to exit its non-core businesses.  The sale price translates to an effective valuation of 3.7x the combined 30 June 2012 BV of both companies of RM310m (for 51% stake) or 49.4x PER of their FY11 net earnings of RM22.5m (for 51% stake). This is the second biggest transaction locally in the insurance sector after ING’s sale of its Malaysian life insurance unit for USD1.68b. We believe the valuation of the sale is attractive due to the interest of both Khazanah and SunLife to want to forge a long-term strategic alliance in the insurance sector and thus are willing to pay a higher price to land a good asset in the sector to kick-start their partnership. The sale will see CIMB enjoying  an estimated one-off transaction gain of RM800m.

Our View. We are positive on these sales as they are seen as unlocking the group’s value. The sale proceeds will enable CIMB to replenish its capital after its two major acquisitions made early last year. Note that those acquisitions are earnings accretive only over the medium to long term.   Meanwhile, we believe the cash proceeds from the stake sales above to likely go to rewarding the shareholders. The group is targeting to complete the sale of CIMB Aviva by 2Q13 and is highly likely to offer a one-off Dividend Reinvestment Plan to its shareholders investors as part of its capital management plan. This will enable the group to comply with BNM’s new consolidated supervision and capital framework  under the new Financial Service Bill.  In addition to that, the group could also take the opportunity to further clean up its balance sheet by increasing its provisioning coverage. However, we understand that more details on this would only be shared by management in its 4QFY12 result announcement due in mid-February 2013.

Note that CIMB is one of the two groups in our stock coverage that does not report consolidated capital ratios. However, we understand that the group’s double leverage ratio is at 117%, which shows that the equity capital of some of its subsidiaries is funded by debt issued by the parent company. CIMB’s management has estimated the group’s CCR at around 8.0% as at June 2012 and is considering earnings retention via a one-off Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRP). Management has further stated that its earnings retention plan together with asset divestments would be sufficient to boost its capital ratio if needed and there is no urgency to issue new equity.

Source: Kenanga

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