Macquarie Research Equities on Tuesday gave conglomerate SM Investments Corp. an "outperform" rating, saying it is confident that the company will meet its full-year income projection.
"Retail businesses always show higher earnings in the fourth quarter," it said in a recent client note.
The brokerage firm also gave SM Investments a 12-month target price of P395.
In the first nine months, SM Investments' net profit rose 14 percent year-on-year to P8.5 billion, which accounts for 65 percent of Macquarie's full-year profit forecast of P13 billion for the company.
Consolidated revenue for the period almost doubled to P82.6 billion, including contributions from SM Supermarket and SM Hypermarket.
"The results support our outperform rating on SM, which is our preferred pick in the conglomerates sector. Moreover, SM is the best way to play the reflation story in the Philippines given its strong presence in retail, banking and property development."
SM Investments, which is owned by tycoon Henry Sy, is the country's third-biggest company by market value.
Its subsidiaries include mall builder and operator SM Prime Holdings Inc., SM Development Corp. and Banco de Oro Unibank Inc., the nation's second-largest bank by assets.
No comments:
Post a Comment