[ET Net News Agency, 29 November 2019] Daiwa Research lowered its target price for
China Construction Bank (00939) to HK$7.8 from HK$8 and maintained its "buy" rating.
The research house likes CCB's prudent and balanced strategy amid macro challenges with
optimised asset quality and strong capital buffers. Daiwa said CCB has turned more prudent
in its scale expansion since early 2018 by posting the lowest loan and deposit growth
among the big-4 banks since 3Q 2018 and 1Q 2018, respectively.
The bank increased its allocations in retail loans, infrastructure loans and loans to
private enterprises and strategic emerging industries, and did not compete for high-cost
deposits. It balances asset and liability growth with reasonable pricing strategies. In
3Q, CCB managed to record a resilient NIM (net interest margin).
It expects CCB to record a moderate decline in NIM over 2020-21, helped by a less
negative impact from the industry-wide loan yield drop and its selective approach in
deposit growth. (KL)