Hong Leong Finance

[blid2def]

Businessweek gives you up to 1989, monthly:

- http://investing.businessweek.com/resea ... ol=HLSF.SI

Select "Max" for the chart timeframe.

[kennynah]

i wonder if hong leong finance is so named becos the owner was a guy called Hong Leong ?

[decarn]

Businessweek gives you up to 1989, monthly:

- http://investing.businessweek.com/resea ... ol=HLSF.SI

Select "Max" for the chart timeframe.

Thanks a lot Grandrake!

[iam802]

From Phillips:

Hong Leong Finance Limited announced that it is offering to purchase Lehman Minibond programmenotes from its most vulnerable customers, namely the elderly and less well-educated customers who meet the two conditions (i) the main account holder must be 62 years or older at the time of investment with not higher than a primary school education and (ii) joint account holder, if any, must also not have higher thanprimary school education

[millionairemind]

Suka suka anyhow cut

*DJ Hong Leong Finance Target Cut To S$2.65 From S$4.80 By DMG

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 23, 2008 01:51 ET (05:51 GMT)

[winston]

Hong Leong Finance Q3 net falls 16.2% to $30.9m By SIOW LI SEN

SINGAPORE - HONG Leong Finance on Monday said third quarter net profit fell 16.2 per cent to $30.9 million (US$20.8 million) as it turned cautious and made less loans and made more provisions.

Annualised earnings per share at Singapore's largest finance company fell to 28.07 cents from 33.61 cents.

No further interim dividend was declared. It had paid five cents interim dividend in the previous quarter

[millionairemind]

Published February 14, 2009

Hong Leong Finance hit by $55.5m provision

By JAMIE LEE

HONG Leong Finance (HLF) posted a 41.5 per cent slump in full-year net profit after a hefty provision for its structured product settlement.

It registered a net profit of $78 million for the 12 months ended Dec 31, 2008, down from $133.4 million a year ago.

This was due to a $55.5 million provision for settlements for soured investments in structured products, net of reversal/recovery for doubtful debts.

The company had distributed structured products such as the Morgan Stanley Pinnacle Series 9 and 10 notes and the Lehman Brothers' mini-bonds.

In comparison, the finance institution had written back $27.6 million in allowance in 2007.

Net interest income and hiring charges - referring to charges from instalment payments for fixed assets - rose 8.2 per cent to $206 million compared with $190 million in 2007, thanks to lower interest expenses.

Interest expense fell 10.1 per cent to $155 million, against a 0.5 per cent dip in interest income and hiring charges to $361 million.

Fees and commission income fell 20.9 per cent to $17.3 million from $21.8 million in 2007. Its tier-1 capital adequacy ratio stood at 17 per cent, up from 15.6 per cent a year ago.

Net loan assets, which includes hire purchase receivables, dipped 7.8 per cent to $7.41 billion at the end of the year from $8.04 billion in 2007.

Deposits and savings accounts of customers fell nearly 2 per cent to $8.1 billion compared with $8.26 billion a year ago.

'The strong growth in loans and advances seen in 2007 recorded a reversal in 2008 given the deteriorating global financial situation, with loan repayments exceeding new lending,' said chairman Kwek Leng Beng in a statement.

'Since the middle of 2008, HLF has been vigorously reviewing its loan portfolio which has been strengthened and well-controlled,' he added. 'In the interests of all parties, we hope that the flow of credit will be unclogged soon. In the meantime, the market calls for higher returns for lending risks.'

He also assured that HLF has no sub-prime exposure. No final dividend was declared.

[winston]

From DMG:-

HLF: Earnings hurt by compensation for Lehman bondholders (BUY\S$2.10\Target S$2.65)
Leng Seng Choon, CFA (62323890, [email protected])

HLF reported FY08 net profit of S$78m, down 41.5%. The decline was primarily due to provisions for the Lehman Minibond Notes. Pre-provisioning operating profit was up 9% to S$147.9m, stronger than our S$139.8m forecast.

Net interest income rose 8.2% to S$205.6m. HLF has been cautious in its loan book – net loans contracted 7.8% to S$7.41b in FY08. Our assessment is that this cautiousness will enable HLF to minimise its asset quality deterioration in the quarters ahead.

Earnings forecast lowered to factor in deteriorating economic conditions. We expect loan loss provisioning to rise in the quarters ahead. Having said that, HLF’s conservative stance – evident from its FY08 loan contraction of 7.8% - should help to minimize the rise in NPL ratio. We lower our FY09 net profit forecast by 16% to S$91.3m primarily due to an increase in our provisioning assumption from S$12m to S$38m. We are projecting 2009 loan contraction of 2.1%.

HLF is not recommending a final dividend for FY08, in view of the difficult outlook for the year ahead. This is despite HLF’s strong Tier 1 CAR of 17%. We believe this will disappoint investors.

Valuation remains attractive. HLF is trading at a P/NTA of 0.7x (based on NTA of S$3.10/share). We maintain our S$2.65 price target, which is pegged to 0.8x of 2009 NTA. Assuming a 49% payout ratio, 2009 dividend yield is a fairly respectable 4.8%.

[winston]

Not vested anymore.

HONG LEONG FINANCE - Hong Leong reported on Friday a 15.8 percent fall in first quarter net profit to S$25.7 million from a year ago, mainly due to reduced contribution from wealth management and an increase in provisions.

[winston]

From DMG:-

We are upgrading HLF target price from S$2.65 to S$3.20, on the back of recent improvements in residential property sales, which is positive due to HLF’s loan concentration in this segment. We also believe HLF asset quality will be more resilient given its conservative loan stance – HLF started contracting its loan QoQ as early as 2Q08. We maintain our BUY call.

HLF’s conservative loan stance a positive. HLF started its sequential loan book contraction from 2Q08, when banks were still growing their loans. As of Mar 09, HLF contracted its loans 3.7% YoY, whilst the systemic loan grew 8.6% YoY. This reflects HLF’s conservatism, which is a big positive in the current
recessionary environment.

Our recent checks with management suggest that loans could remain weak as developers will repay their loans upon TOP of their projects but not many are embarking on new land acquisition (although some have started to explore this). We forecast HLF loan to contract 5.4% in FY09.

Recent sentiment improvement for housing sales will also help HLF. 30% of HLF loan book is to the building and construction space and 18% for housing loans. This high exposure is on account of the Hong Leong Group’s participation in the Singapore property market. The recent housing sale sentiment improvement will also translate to higher asset quality for HLF.

Earnings could exceed our forecasts if provisions stay low. We are maintaining our earnings forecasts, and have assumed FY09 provisions of S$38m, sharply higher than FY08’s estimated S$10m (out of the total S$55m, Lehman Minibond Notes, which is one-time, account for S$45m). If provisions were lower than our forecasts, then HLF earnings could surpass our forecasts.

Valuation remains attractive. HLF is trading at a P/NTA of 0.8x (based on Mar 09 NTA of S$3.16/share). Our $3.20 price target is pegged to 1.0x of 2009 NTA. Assuming a 49% payout ratio, 2010 dividend yield is a fairly respectable 4.7%.