Minor International Public Company Limited (SET: MINT) expects its performance in the fourth quarter to continue being solid in response to global recovery in hotel, restaurant and lifestyle business.
The Bangkok-based multinational company sees positive momentum in the hotel business after recording higher bookings, while the majority of its customers are high – luxury class, resulting in better performance than the market. Moreover, there are no signals indicating a slowdown in demand of tourists after relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions.
The company states that RevPAR in the fourth quarter for hotel operation in Thailand is starting to rise above pre-Covid level. Occupancy rate is now over 60%, and would return to normal level and above pre-Covid level by next year, following strong recovery in Thai tourism. Hotel operations in Europe are also seeing an increase in tourists, while North America and Asia should be visiting more in 2023.
Restaurant business in Thailand is expected to continue performing well from SSSG, branch expansions and rebranding to attract more customers.
In addition, the company plans to launch six new hotels next year, while trying to settle its debt that has high interest rates as fast as it can to lower the risk of potential rate-hike upcycle in the future.
The current THB 6,000 million-made investment is still below its THB 10,000 budget for this year. MINT states that it has over THB 27,000 million of cash on hand, along with loan credit over THB 30,000 million and warrants that could be exercised over THB 13,000 million, emphasizing its strong financial status.
KGI Securities (KGI) reiterated its positive view on MINT’s performance in 4Q22. In October 2022, occupancy remained strong at 71% (vs. 68% in 3Q22), while SSSG for its restaurant business remained positive at +7.1% (vs. +16.6% YoY in 3Q22). Since MINT has higher debt and revenue exposure to Europe than peers, key risks to watch would be i) cost inflation, ii) economic conditions in Europe next year, and iii) rising interest rate trend. KGI maintained a rating of Outperform with an unchanged target price of Bt33.50 per share.
Innovest X Securities (INVX) stated that to factor in the strong 3Q22 results, it revised up MINT’s 2022 earnings projection to a core profit of Bt1.4bn (from a core loss of Bt2.9bn) and 2023 by 4%. INVX expected 4Q22 core earnings to improve YoY but soften QoQ on seasonality in Europe. MINT expects limited impact from rising electricity costs (utilities = ~4% of revenue) in Europe as it has hedging contracts locking in price and securing volume for use through end-2022 and over 60% of 2023 forecasted usage.
INVX maintained its 3-month tactical call of Outperform on MINT with an unchanged end-2023 TP of Bt38.00 per share.
