Macquarie has raised OCBC’s (O39.SG) target price to $9.92 from $8.44 on the back of earnings upgrades to factor in the Singapore bank’s impending completion of acquisition of ING Asia’s private banking assets.
The Australian investment bank has raised OCBC’s FY10 net profit estimate by 6% to factor in contributions from private banking business as well as reduction in provision charges and says the acquisition should bring benefits.
Citigroup has raised Parkway Holdings’ (P27.SG) target price to $3.40 from $2.85 on the back of earnings upgrades and has maintained its “buy” rating.
The brokerage has raised its FY09–11 earnings forecasts by 7–14% to reflect rising patient admissions and higher margins and says its new target price assumes 12-month forward PE of around 25x, which is line with the average valuation since 2004 to reflect reduced earnings risk, greater confidence in expansion plans.
CLSA is maintaining Ezra Holdings (5DN.SG) at buy, raising its target price to $2.54 from $2.10 after upgrading its FY10, FY11 earnings forecasts by 10%, 11%, respectively, to factor in higher margins and lower finance costs.
The brokerage says the offshore support services company is “poised to ride the growth in deepwater exploration and surging demand for attendant subsea services” as it will take delivery of three subsea vessels in 2010.
ARA Trust Management (Suntec), the manager of Suntec REIT, says the private placement of 128.5 million new Suntec REIT units have been fully subscribed at an issue price of $1.19 each.
The issue price represents a discount of 6.5% to the volume weighted average price of $1.2724 per unit in Suntec REIT and 4.6% to the adjusted volume weighted average price of $1.2475 per unit for trades done for the full market day on Dec 10.
OCBC Investment Research has upgraded Golden Agri-Resources (E5H.SG) to “buy” from “hold”, raising its target price to 58 cents from 45 cents based on 14X FY10 P/E vs 12X P/E previously to reflect recent re-rating of Singapore-listed plantation stocks on improved CPO price outlook.
OCBC notes that CPO prices rose nearly 10% at US$691/tonne ($962/tonne) in November from October on steady crude oil prices, economic pickup, higher demand from China, India.
OCBC Investment Research has raised Noble Group’s (N21.SG) target price to $3.73 from $3.17 on earnings upgrades, positive view for commodities sector and maintaining its “buy” rating.
“Moving into 2010, we believe that the worst is over and expect macro conditions to improve with a recovery of commodity prices, tightening demand and supply fundamentals and the emergence of inorganic growth opportunities,” says OCBC.
Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing and Singapore Exchange were upgraded to “outperform” at Credit Suisse Group AG, which said rising equity markets and healthy liquidity conditions will boost turnover.
Hong Kong Exchanges was previously rated “underperform” while Singapore Exchange was rated “neutral” at the brokerage.
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JPMorgan has raised ST Engineering (S63.SG) target price to $4 from $3.5 after increasing FY10-11 earnings forecasts by 3.2%, 6.0% respectively to factor in recent new contracts, including US$90 million ($125 million) job announced last week to provide airframe maintenance services for fleet of Airbus A320s, Boeing 767s over three years, with option to extend for another two.
