Hai-O’s prospects likely to be challenging

JF Apex Securities has revised down the company’s earnings forecast for the financial year ending April 30, 2022 (FY22) by 7.6% to RM40.3mil to account for “lower-than-expected margin” and sales. “Overall, we expect the Hai-O business to go through a stiff operating environment amid the resurgence of Covid-19 cases."

PETALING JAYA: The prospects for Hai-O Enterprise Bhd are expected to be challenging, as its retail segment that relies on brick-and-mortar sales could be affected by measures to curb the Covid-19 pandemic.

JF Apex Securities has revised down the company’s earnings forecast for the financial year ending April 30, 2022 (FY22) by 7.6% to RM40.3mil to account for “lower-than-expected margin” and sales.

“Overall, we expect the Hai-O business to go through a stiff operating environment amid the resurgence of Covid-19 cases.

“We expect growth momentum would be interrupted in the first half of FY22 amid a continuation of restricted movement as well as slow vaccination rollout in our nation, ” it said in a report yesterday.

For the fourth quarter ended April 30, 2021 (Q4’FY21), Hai-O posted a 20% year-on-year jump in net profit to RM39.12mil spurred by its multilevel marketing (MLM) and wholesale divisions, and low-base effect from last year’s movement control order.Its MLM segment saw a 103% surge in profits in FY21 thanks to social media and e-commerce platforms, while the wholesale segment was boosted by encouraging sales from Chinese medicated tonic, premium cooking wine and patented medicine.

Meanwhile, its retail segment saw its revenue was down by 2.5% yoy.

However, on a quarterly basis, JF Apex said Hai-O saw sluggish sales from MLM and the wholesale segment in Q4’FY21 due to impairment loss from an associate company amounting to RM1.5mil as well as lower advertising and promotion subsidy

from suppliers.

Overall, the research house said Hai-O FY21’s net profit was within its expectation, which accounted for 94.4% of its full-year earnings estimates and market expectations.

JF Apex has maintained its “hold” call on Hai-O shares with a lower target price of RM2.13 from RM2.30 previously following its earnings revision.

“Our target price is now based on a price-earning multiple of 15.9 times FY22 forecast earnings per share of 13.4 sen, slightly higher than average mean PE of 14.6 times.

“We deem the stock is fairly valued and share price is well supported by its decent dividend yield of over 4% for FY22 forecast, ” it said.