Tuesday, June 28, 2011

HL Bank flat at midday, upside priced in

KUALA LUMPUR: Shares of HONG LEONG BANK BHD [] were unchanged at RM12.90 at midday on Tuesday, June 28 as analysts viewed the upside had already been priced in.

There were 40,700 shares transacted at prices ranging from RM12.90 to RM12.92.

UOB Kay Hian Malaysia research said it downgraded Hong Leong Bank to HOLD from BUY as the earnings synergies from the merger and the strong performance from its China associate were already in the share price.

'Current share price of RM12.90 is close to our target price of RM13.70 (based on 2.2 times FY13F price-to-book) with an upside of only 6.2%.

'Its share price has risen 40.2% year-to-date (YTD), making it the second-best performing banking stock after its holding company Hong Leong Financial Group (+46.6% year-to-date), and outperforming the market (FBM KLCI +2.9% YTD).

UPB Kay Hian said the strong share price performance was attributable to its low foreign shareholding (around 7.9% as at April 2011) and being under-owned by most of the local funds.

It said Hong Leong Bank was on track to deliver a three-year net profit compounded annual growth rate of 24.6% to RM1.9 billion by FY13 (FY10: RM988 million).

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