Daily Brief Equity Bottom-Up: Alibaba (9988 HK): 3Q24 and more

• Alibaba’s revenue grew by 5% YoY and its operating margin improved by 2 percentage points YoY in 3Q24.
• We believe the company turned its focus from margin improvement to revenue growth.
• We set the upside at 20% and the price target at HK$90 for March 2025. Buy.

• A company that is geared to Japan’s macro revival with additional micro catalysts. 
• Ownership of financial companies which are set to benefit from a normalisation of Japanese monetary policy.
• The low Price to Book means the company will need to keep up momentum on its capital management plans to  stay in the Prime Section of Topix.

• L’Oreal SA (OR FP) is the largest beauty company in the world, with a 15% global market share.  The second place in contrast has only around 5% market share. 
• The company has been excellently managed, and out-performed the overall global beauty industry growth by an average of 5% over the last 3 years.  However, growth could be slowing down.
• L’Oreal is now trading at 34x forward PE, which is a near 100% premium over the average of European consumer staples, and near a multi-decade high. 

• Bank Mandiri (BMRI IJ) stood out from its peers with higher loan growth and lower cost of credit with PPOP growth of +17.3% YoY and its ROE reaching 23%. 
• The bank experienced a slight decline in NIM in 4Q2023 but asset quality remains solid and its digital initiatives continue to reduce costs and attract new users.
• Bank Mandiri‘s guidance for 2024 is more positive than peers for loan growth, as it continues to push out its value chain lending strategy into higher-yielding segments. Valuations remain attractive.

• Not so long ago, Disney’s share price was nearing the $200 mark, despite the pandemic’s severe impact on its Parks and Resorts business.
• Fast forward to the present, and even with the parks posting record results, Disney’s share price has fallen to levels not seen in a decade, raising the question: what happened?
• Several factors are at play, including challenges within the studio arm, ongoing decline of its legacy media operations, and Big Tech’s incursion into sports media.

• Despite upping the FY24 guidance in the prior quarter (Q2FY24), KPIT is confident of beating even the raised guidance, led by strong Q3FY24 performance and an upbeat outlook.
• Despite accelerated revenue in H1FY24 from the Honda engagement, Q3FY24 saw robust revenue growth of 4.3% QoQ in CC terms. EBITDA margin expanded to 20.6% vs 20% QoQ. 
• KPIT’s new venture, Qorix, is coming along well and could prove to be transformative. This could enable KPIT to become a product company, alongside being a high-growth service company.

• The American Airlines Group reported adjusted pretax profit of $257 million for the fourth quarter and approximately $2.5 billion for the full year 2023.
• This result was driven by the strength of the network, demand for products, and execution by the team.
• Positive indications from the group include historically strong operation with the production of record free cash flow and a strengthened balance sheet through debt reduction.

Key points (machine generated)

• BV Financial recently completed its conversion from a mutual holding company to a full-converted stock company.
• The bank has consistently achieved a return on equity of 10-11% in recent years.
• Despite its significant growth, BV Financial’s securities represent only 5% of its total assets of $933 million.

This article is sourced from an online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. This article was originally published 3 months ago on Value Investors Club.

• KLA Corporation saw a revenue of nearly $9.7 billion in 2023, marking a decrease of 8% compared to the previous year.
• Despite less leading-edge investment in both logic and memory, legacy node customers and the semiconductor infrastructure assisted in exceeding the initially projected revenue.
• Business segments such as automotive, specialty semiconductor process equipment, and infrastructure for wafer and mass manufactures experienced growth in 2023.

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