[ET Net News Agency, 4 March 2020] Goldman Sachs lifted its target price for Minth
Group (00425) to HK$34.6 from HK$33.5 on valuation roll-over and maintained its "buy"
rating.
The research house lowered its 2020/21 revenues by -5%/-2% and net profits by -15%/-7%.
Dongfeng-Honda (632k-unit annual capacity in Wuhan, Hubei) and Dongfeng-Nissan (250k-unit
annual capacity in Xiangyang, Hubei) are key customers for Minth in the Chinese market,
and contribute to a high-single-digit % of Minth's total revenues in 2019, Goldman
estimated.
It added that Japanese customers in total contributed to 33% of Minth's revenue globally
in 1H 2019. Aluminum battery pack contributions from these two customers could also be
delayed (Minth started mass production of its first aluminum battery pack project in
August 2019, followed by a second project in October 2019, supplying Dongfeng-Honda and
Dongfeng-Nissan, respectively). In addition, Goldman fine-tuned its 2019 numbers to factor
in the industry trend in 4Q 2019.
Goldman expects the majority of parts suppliers to normalize production by early March,
except for the capacity in Hubei. This would mean a 1-month delay from the originally
planned restart date of 31 January. (KL)