Quick Look At Axiata's Quarterly Earnings

On the Edge Financial Daily: Axiata up in active trade after upgrade

• CIMB Equities Research upgraded Axiata from Neutral to Outperform in view of the telco's recapitalisation which lifted a key concern, its share price plunge and its positive view of Celcom and Idea.
  
  “We expect strong 1QFY09 results from Celcom, driven by corporate demand, mobile broadband and a strong take-up from the youth segment for its prepaid product. Idea is poised for very strong growth, aided by its expansion into the remaining seven circles.
  
  “We are cutting our FY09-10 forecasts by 6-26% for earnings downgrades for XL and delay in contributions from Idea due to hold-ups in the merger with Spice. Our SOP-based target price for Axiata is unchanged RM2.65,” it said.

In its report, CIMB wrote the following on Axiata's earnings review.

• 1QFY09 results preview
  Axiata is scheduled to announce its results on 19 May, followed immediately by a conference call.
  
  Turnaround expected. After the plunge to a core net loss of RM21m in 4Q08 from a net profit of RM362m in 3Q08, we expect Axiata to post a core net profit of RM160m- 200m, primarily on the back of a sharp turnaround in XL’s contribution to RM4m profit from a core net loss of RM149m in 4Q08. We expect smaller losses from TMIB qoq but we caution that earnings visibility there is extremely poor.

And if you do have a copy of CIMB's earnings notes, CIMB states that they prefer SingTel.

• RM2.65 target price. We retain our rights-adjusted SOP-based target price of RM2.65 in which Celcom features as the heavyweight. The potential re-rating catalysts are strong growth from Celcom and Idea as well as a turnaround for Excelcomindo. Axiata is our top Malaysian telco pick given its higher-growth and more attractive valuations. However, among the regional telcos, we prefer SingTel for its higher exposure to emerging markets and better quality assets.

I guess what CIMB actually prefer is not important. What important is to state that the stock is up. :p2

Anyway, Axiata just announced its earnings.

This is what it reported.

ps. the earnings per share is rather muddled. Not my fault lah. Axiata in its quarterly earnings notes states that it is using the weighted average number of shares of 3,753,402,000 shares. As it is, from my live quotes, I see that Axiata has some 8,455,154,455 shares. ( And as you know, weighted average number of shares is rather silly since one cannot buy based on weighted average shares. )

Axiata today closed up at 2.32, up 11 sen or 4.977%. :D

How? Priced up or priced in? :p2