[ET Net News Agency, 30 October 2017] Daiwa Research raised its target price for China
Construction Bank (00939) to HK$8 from HK$7.75, and maintained its "outperform" rating.
The research house cited CCB management in an analyst briefing on 26 October guiding for
better NIM and gave more details on asset quality and its retail business.
Daiwa expects CCB to continue to benefit from an interest income recovery. Along with
the recent rising interest rates and relatively better economic demand versus the previous
year, loan pricing is increasing and Daiwa believes the uptrend will continue in 2018.
It also sees the "double-decline" in balance and ratio of overdue loans as a good sign
for further slowing in NPL formation going forward.
Daiwa believes that the market may be overlooking CCB's efforts in technology
development and retail banking, which would help reduce its operating cost and increase
its operating margin in the long run. (KL)