Asean-focused. Ex-Head of Thai Research

Athaporn Arayasantiparb, CFA

Athaporn served as Head of Research for UOB and ANZ in Thailand and was an award-winning telecoms analyst at UBS in 2010 (AsiaMoney Thailand category) and Regional Strategist for DMG in Singapore. Prior to that, he also served as Kasikornbank credit analyst and scholar. He has a total work experience of 22 years, of which 19 were in research and 9 in research management roles. He started his career as an engineer for PTT and currently manages family investments. He holds an MBA from Stern (NYU) and CFA Charter since 2006.

Apart from IPO Radar, which focuses on future listings, MCorp Review also performs financial advisory services for TKC Services and provides 11 other on-going thematic series ranked by frequency in descending order, namely:

1) Snippets (news-driven);
2) Sathorn Series (financial services);
3) Silicon Stories (technology); 
4) Thai-Coons (billionaire origin series);
5) Reality Check (data-driven, investigative);
6) Thai Media Spotlight;
7) Political Pit Stop; 
8) Telecom Review; 
9) Thai Macro Watch (read-through from foreign events);  
10) Small Cap Diary; and
11) Property Grid

There are also 3 limited-time series driven by specific events or locations, namely:
1) Thai Corona Crisis;
2) South Series; and
3) Mechanics and Details (deal forensics).

SABINA: Staying Sexy in the Underwear Market

TKN: New Hope for China Market Penetration

Company Visits: KTC, Taokaenoi (Treading Water)

CBG: Valuation Running Ahead of Fundamentals

Asean (Thailand) Focused Independent Research

M Corp Review

M Corp is led by Athaporn Arayasantiparb who served as Head of Research for UOB and ANZ in Thailand and was an award-winning telecoms analyst at UBS in 2010 (AsiaMoney Thailand category) and Regional Strategist for DMG in Singapore. Prior to that, he also served as Kasikornbank credit analyst and scholar. He has a total work experience of 17 years, of which 14 were in research and 4 in research management roles. He started his career as an engineer for PTT and currently manages family investments. He holds an MBA from Stern (NYU) and CFA Charter since 2006. Apart from IPO Radar, which focuses on future listings, MCorp Review also provides six on-going thematic series ranked by frequency in descending order, namely: 1) Silicon Stories (technology) 2) Sathorn Series (financial services) 3) Thai-Coons (billionaire origin stories) 4) Reality Check (data-driven, investigative) 5) Thai Media Spotlight; and 6) Thai Macro Watch (global market drivers).

Equity Bottom-Up

Taokaenoi Food & Marketing / Equity Bottom-Up

We visited two interesting small-cap companies recently. Taokaenoi was a former high-flyer founded by a young business legend selling seaweed snacks in almost 30 different markets. Sabina is a leading local bra maker in Thailand. During COVID-19, they have taken to creating some face masks.<ul>
<li>
Taokaenoi (TKN) reported Bt263m in earnings for 9M'20, up 6% YoY, despite a 19% drop in revenues largely by aggressive cost cutting. Chinese sales plunged 9% partly due to COVID-19 but also accounting changes, while American sales rocketed 50% and looks poised to continue with strong momenum.</li>
<li>Meanwhile, TKN also plans to introduce new products (milk tea), consolidate production in Rojana plant, and continue benefiting from its cheap seaweed inventory well into late 2021.</li>
<li>
SABINA reported Q3'20 earnings of Bt86m, down 26.4% YoY, on the back of 3.8% YoY decline in revenues to Bt815m. The company's margins were greatly depressed by face mask production, much of which was donated and the rest of which were sold at lower margins to keep things going.</li>
<li>SABINA hesitated to cut down its outlets aggressively as they wanted to make sure it's not a one-time pandemic issue, and they hope to see recovery next year on the back of foreign online sales expansion.</li>
</ul>

We visited two interesting small-cap companies recently. Taokaenoi was a former high-flyer founded by a young business legend selling seaweed snacks in almost 30 different markets. Sabina is a leading local bra maker in Thailand. During COVID-19, they have taken to creating some face masks.

Taokaenoi (TKN) reported Bt263m in earnings for 9M'20, up 6% YoY, despite a 19% drop in revenues largely by aggressive cost cutting. Chinese sales plunged 9% partly due to COVID-19 but also accounting changes, while American sales rocketed 50% and looks poised to continue with strong momenum.
Meanwhile, TKN also plans to introduce new products (milk tea), consolidate production in Rojana plant, and continue benefiting from its cheap seaweed inventory well into late 2021.

SABINA reported Q3'20 earnings of Bt86m, down 26.4% YoY, on the back of 3.8% YoY decline in revenues to Bt815m. The company's margins were greatly depressed by face mask production, much of which was donated and the rest of which were sold at lower margins to keep things going.
SABINA hesitated to cut down its outlets aggressively as they wanted to make sure it's not a one-time pandemic issue, and they hope to see recovery next year on the back of foreign online sales expansion.


Taokaenoi Food & Marketing

Small Cap Diary: Taokaenoi and Sabina