Brokers recommend buy

Most market analysts tip the Rs. 500 million Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Access Engineering Ltd., which officially opens on Tuesday 6 March, to be comfortably fully oversubscribed, whilst several brokers too have recommended it.

Lanka Securities, which recommended the Access Engineering IPO as Subscribe, said the forecasted EPS for FY12E is Rs. 1.7 and BVPS stood at Rs. 11.7. Accordingly, the forward PER and PBV for FY12E are 15.0x and 2.1x respectively (at IPO price of Rs. 25.0).

Heavy construction sector is currently trading at a PER of 10.2x, while close peers such as Colombo Dockyard and MTD Walkers are trading at PERs of 9.3x and 14.3x respectively.

Lanka Securities also said based on a complete valuation carried out using discounted free cash flow, the calculated total equity value for the group is Rs. 27.7 billion at the end of FY12E.

Accordingly, the derived value per share of AEL is Rs. 27.70, an upside capital gain of 11.0% over the issue price of Rs. 25.00. “Hence, for a rational investor with a long-term perspective, AEL’s IPO price is justifiable and we recommend Subscribe,” Lanka Securities said.

It is forecasting a net profit of Rs. 1.7 billion (+43.0%) and Rs. 2.1 billion (+25.2%) for FY12E and FY13E respectively. The increase in net profit is mainly driven by the accelerated infrastructure development activities in the country.

The revenue is anticipated to grow at a rate of 76.9% and 37.3% in the next two years supported by the booming construction industry. The construction industry which saw a sluggish activity in recent years is now facing a 9.3% (in 2010) upturn with the mega infrastructure projects undertaken by both government and private sector.

LSL said key risk factors would be possible inflationary economic conditions (e.g. rupee devaluation, increasing interest rates, increasing inflation, etc.) and it may affect the construction cost to increase over the period.

Given AEL’s sound business relationships and impressive track record, Arrenga Capital expects the Group to thrive on future prospects in the construction industry in line with infrastructure development in the country. “Hence, we expect AEL to record net earnings of Rs. 1.8 billion for FY13E and Rs. 2.6 billion for FY14 featuring a PER of 14.0X and 9.7X respectively,” it said.

The counter, which is in a high growth industry, is offered above market valuations at a price of Rs. 25 per share on FY13E earnings (4Q Trailing Market PER of 11.0X), Arrenga added.

Asia Wealth Management forecast AEL earnings to be Rs. 1.58 billion for FY12E whilst FY13E earnings would remain at Rs. 1.99 billion.

“We expect the company to perform much better with the upcoming construction projects in the pipeline coupled with significant potential in the high-geared construction industry in the country,” Asia Wealth said.

AEL on a forecasted net profit of Rs. 1.58 billion for FY12E, accounts to a PE multiple of 15.8X. Furthermore Asia expects 12.5X and 9.7X on its FY13E and FY14 earnings respectively.

In addition the counter currently trades on a PBV of 5.5X, which we anticipate would improve to 2.1X by the end of FY12E. As opposed to the Construction sector PE of 10.6X and PBV of 1.6X.

“It is noted that based on the financial analysis and the forecast we have done, AEL is clearly a fundamentally strong counter that we could recommend to “SUBSCRIBE”,” Asia Wealth Management said.

However, the broking firm said if gifted shares to employees are sold in the secondary market subsequent to initial trading there could be downward pressure on the share price.

Access Engineering, which made its foray into the motor business with a Rs. 846 million acquisition of a 60% stake in Sathosa Motors, is offering 20 million voting shares at Rs. 25 each.

Adopted from ft.lk