Happy Tuesday, Barkada --
The PSE gained 68 points to 6355 ▲1.1%
Thanks to
Spyfrat's Call for the meme appreciation, and to
Jing for the trauma bonding over our unmet DDMPR expectations.
There is a lot of reading for me to do on the quarterly earnings reports, and I will definitely be taking a deeper dive on a few stocks (like
MONDE) over the coming days. Let me know if there are any stocks that you'd like to see covered and I'll see what I can do!
Shout-outs to rethon-ji, John, Stephen Chiong, Makisig Tan, Pao, Jonathan Burac, Just’n, LanAustria, CubicTrade, Palaboy Trader, mArQo, arkitrader, Lance Nazal, Grumpy Trader, Chip Sillesa, Dividend Pinoy | PGG, Rolex Jodieres, leaf, and Jing for the retweets, and to Padilla GJ, Genesis Umali, Evolves.co and Mike Ting for the FB shares!
- DITO forex losses climb to ₱6-B in Q3
- PSE: Twenty companies seeking Q3 reporting deadline extension
- MREIT declares slightly lower Q3 div
- Phoenix Petroleum Q3 profit ▼1,051% y/y
▌Main stories covered:
- [Q3] DITO forex losses climb to ₱6-B in Q3... DITO CME [DITO 2.81 ▼2.09%] [link] reported Q3 profit down 88% y/y, and down 28% q/q, to a net loss of ₱11 billion. DITO’s 9M profit is down 174% y/y to a net loss of ₱26 billion, driven largely by the degrading value of the Philippine Peso relative to the US Dollar, and the unrealized foreign exchange losses that DITO has accumulated on its huge outstanding dollar-denominated debts. DITO noted ₱2.9 billion in unrealized forex losses in Q1, ₱4.4 billion in Q2, and now another ₱6 billion in Q3, for a total of ₱13.3 billion since the start of the year. DITO said that it had 13.1 million subscribers at the end of Q3 (up 36% from Q2), and that they generated an average revenue per user (ARPU) of ₱77.3 per month. The ARPU figure is down 4.6% from DITO’s H1/22 ARPU of ₱81/month. DITO’s current ratio (current assets / current liabilities) at the end of Q3 was 0.02. For reference, DITO’s competitors, Globe [GLO 2212.00 ▼3.83%] and SMART [TEL 1544.00 ▲0.92%] have current ratios that bounce between 0.33 and 0.45.
- MB: In the management discussion and analysis section of the financial statements, DITO’s management says that “despite its reported capital deficiency, management is confident that [DITO] can continue as a going concern as management believes that [DITO’s] ability to continue as a going concern is dependent upon its ability to generate sufficient cash flows to meet its maturing obligations.” It’s kind of a weird wording. Maybe I’m being too picky, but it feels like DITO’s management is not explicitly stating that they believe they will generate enough cash flow to meet maturing obligations, only that they believe that DITO’s ability to avoid bankruptcy will depend on its ability to do that. It’s true that their subscriber count is growing quite quickly, but the amount of revenue that they’re getting from each of those subscribers is low and going lower over time. Sure, GLO’s ARPU was only about ₱80/month for 88 million subscribers, and TEL’s ARPU was about ₱106/month for 68 million subscribers. And those are fully mature businesses that have already built out their initial networks. The point is that it’s not like DITO just has to survive for a few more years before it passes through some magical barrier where costs fall dramatically and profits start to skyrocket. Once the initial build-out is done, it’s still going to need to have a significant yearly budget for capex to keep pace and keep growing. It’s low-cost strategy is going to keep its ARPU low, which will suppress revenues. That debt isn’t going anywhere. And while Udenna and China have “committed” to infuse additional capital into Dito Tel, Dennis Uy’s companies are bleeding out the ears, so it’s not like there’s a cash cow in the group that can serve as a gold farm for Udenna’s portion of that commitment.
- [Q3] Twenty companies now seeking a Q3 earnings report deadline extension... The list of companies that are seeking deadline extensions from the PSE exploded in size yesterday, as the PSE’s deadline for submission of Q3 earnings reports came and went. There are now 20 companies that are unable to comply with the PSE’s reporting requirements, up from just eight the day before. COL Financial [COL 3.17 unch] (still consolidating) and CTS Global [CTS 0.86 ▼1.15%] (more time to finalize and get approvals) started the request fest last week, followed by National Reinsurance [NRCP 0.64 ▼1.54%] (still reviewing and finalizing), LBC Express [LBC 16.10 unch] (still reviewing data), TKC Metals [T 0.51 ▼1.92%] (still finalizing financial statements), STI Education [STI 0.32 ▼1.54%] (skeleton administrative crews hit by dengue and COVID outbreaks), Benguet Corp [BC 4.05 ▼3.57%] (still writing management’s discussion section), and Haus Talk [HTI 0.83 ▼2.35%] (still finalization and consolidating). Then, yesterday, we saw applications filed by SOCResources [SOC 0.47 unch] (still finalizing), ATN Holdings [ATN 0.36 unch] (accounting department needs time), Cirtek [TECH 2.46 ▲0.41%] (still reviewing data), Vantage Equities [V 0.73 unch] (finalizing data and getting signatures), Manila Bulletin [MB 0.39 ▲4.00%] (still reviewing data and getting signatures), Alsons Consolidated [ACR 0.79 ▲1.28%] (still finalizing and getting approvals), Transpacific Broadband Group [T 0.51 ▼1.92%]BGI (accountant needs more time), Central Azucarera de Tarlac [CAT 9.50 unch] (still reviewing data), Steniel Manufacturing [STN suspended] (needs more time), AgriNurture [ANI 7.69 ▼0.26%] (still reviewing data), Greenergy [GREEN 1.63 ▼0.61%] (still reviewing data), and Manila Mining [MA 0.01 unch] (communication problems with Surigao del Norte). All of the companies committed to submitting proper financial reports on or before November 21.
- MB: Delays happen because life is unpredictable and chaotic, and any accountant (or person married to an accountant) will tell you that preparation and consolidation of financial statements is something that is difficult to rush. You can’t just wander down into the harshly-lit, under-decorated accounting department and say things like “WORK HARDER!” There is only so much time you can make up with additional overtime hours or temp workers. So, on some level, I am understanding when things come up and conspire to make for a delay. As a default though, as an investor, I start by looking at a request for an extension as a failure of process. A failure to schedule the resources needed to do the things that you need to do, in the timeframe that you need to do them. Sometimes a delay is because there’s been a huge transaction (like an acquisition or sale) close to the reporting deadline, but that kind of event is usually pretty obvious and is something that we all know can’t be solved by “process” alone. That said, the vast majority of the “reasons” given to justify an extension here boil down to some tautological version of “we need more time to finish the reports because the reports aren’t finished yet.” Only STI seemed to provide a detailed outline of the circumstances that conspired to cause its delay, in such a way that could allow an investor to gain comfort that the management team seems to understand the problem well enough to prevent it from happening in the future.
- [NOTES] Quick takes from around the market...
- MREIT [MREIT 11.90 ▼0.50%] [link] MREIT declared a Q3/22 dividend of ₱0.2444, payable on December 15 to shareholders of record as of November 25. The dividend has an annualized yield of 8.22% based on the previous closing price, which is -0.97% smaller than Q3's pre-dividend annualized yield of 8.3%. Relative to MREIT's IPO price, the dividend increased MREIT's total stock and dividend return to -18.55%, up from its pre-dividend total return of -20.06%.
- MB Quick Take: C-c-c-combo breaker! While it’s only a slight step back, the lower div breaks MREIT’s streak of dividend increases that started back in Q1 of this year. MREIT’s net income was down almost 7% q/q, and shareholders still aren’t getting the benefit of the dividend-increasing property-for-share swap that MREIT and Megaworld [MEG 2.12 ▲2.91%] negotiated in April; the transaction is on-hold, awaiting approval from the SEC.
- Phoenix Petroleum [PNX 8.49 unch] [link] Q3 profit ▼1051% y/y (▼761% q/q) to a net loss of ₱0.95 billion. 9M profit ▼734% y/y to net loss of ₱1.1 billion. PNX said that its liquified natural gas trading business was the “bright spot” in its portfolio, increasing 11% q/q with strong demand in both Viet Nam and the Philippines. Otherwise, PNX said that the “exceedingly challenging macroeconomic backdrop” of volatile oil markets, inflation, peso weakness, higher interest rates, and lower demand, caused its domestic fuel volume to “sharply drop” (-44%) and its overseas trading desk to “take a breather” (-35%).
- MB Quick Take: PNX is just a gasoline reseller, so it lives and dies by demand for gas and its ability to monetize access to that gas. Unfortunately for PNX, the price of gas increased dramatically during the year, and demand for that gas has dropped off a cliff. That’s a terrible combination for a business that relies on volume and site visits to keep revenues cycling and keep stations profitable. Sentiment seems to be that oil prices are headed for $100/barrel again soon, and that “upside” risk is growing, so it doesn’t look like this part of the equation will turn in PNX’s favor any time soon.
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