Friday, February 28, 2014

Is Yongnam's disappointing FY2013 financial result a concern?

Yongnam reported its 2013 full year result just yesterday. I have friends and colleagues coming to tell me that Yongnam's profit drop drastically and its shocking. Yes it is if you're just looking at the numbers. Yongnam's net profit actually dropped by a whooping 87.3% from 43.5 million to just 5.5 million. EPS dropped from 3.45 in FY2012 to 0.44 in FY2013. I'm vested in this company since August last year so i should be concern right? Or maybe not. Ok, enough of the bad numbers. Let's look at what happened.

Firstly, revenue actually increased by 19.9% for them but why did profit dropped so much? This mainly has to do with cost over run of 3 structural steel works projects. Which 3 projects was it they did not mention in their report. This caused its cost of sales to increased by 43.3% resulting in lower gross profit.



There was also a "one-off non-recurring loss of $8.1 million on disposal of fixed assets in 3QFY2013 and a $5.1 million provision made on amounts owing from Alpine Bau GmbH, the insolvent main contractor for MRT Downtown Line 2 in 2QFY2013 caused General and Administrative expenses to spike from $24.2million in FY2012 to $31.1million in FY2013. However, this increase was partially offset by a decrease of $6.3 million in staff expenses during the year."

In spite of the drastic reduction of profits, Yongnam still declared a dividend of 0.6cents. This shows that they are still rewarding shareholders even when profits suffer. The cost overrun should be temporary and more of a one off event. Moving forward with more projects coming up, Yongnam's profit should return back to normal and even increase. With Singapore's Land transport authority already awarded various contracts for the construction of the new Thomson line, Yongnam will certainly be part of the game. Previously, Yongnam has been doing most of the Specialist Civil Engineering works for the MRT circle line.



Let's take a look at some of Yongnam's on-going projects:

1) National Art Gallery
  • Contract worth $38.8 million
  • Expected to complete 2Q 2014
2) Singapore Sports Hub (previously National Stadium)
  • Contract worth $110 million
  • Expected to complete 1Q 2014
3) Market Street Development
  • Contract worth $36 million
  • Expected completion in 3Q 2014
4) South Beach Development
  • Contract worth S$21 million
  • Expected completion Sep 2014
5) Marina One (New marina bay CBD)
  • Contract worth $168 milion
  • Expected completion in 2016
6) Various Singapore Downtown line projects
  • Total contracts worth $221 million
  • Expected completion June 2014 to Aug 2015
7) HK MTR Extension – 8 contracts
  • Contracts worth HK$766.6 million
  • Expected completion between 2014 to 2016

All the above on-going projects is expected to provide Yongnam with stable profits for at least the next 1-2 years. There are other potential projects for example the new Changi Airport terminal 4, Project Jewel in Chnagi Airport and Thomson Line etc. The construction sector does look promising to me at least for Yongnam who's playing a part in the commercial and infrastructure upgrade by the government. 

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10 comments:

  1. A few months ago, one of my best friends sent me a text to recommend investing in one of the local stocks, Yongnam. In his texts, he kept praising how good the company was, citing the various exciting business prospects and developments. I did not solicit for his views on any stock investments before, so I was quite surprised that he tried to induce me to invest in this counter. Furthermore, I am not the sort of person who is easily influenced by others when it comes to stock investment and normally I would do my own research before investing in any counters. So I chided him for trying to induce me to invest in Yongnam. Of course he denied flatly and vehemently defended that he was just sharing good stuff. I gave him the benefit of my doubts since he is my good friend, nonetheless, I did not invest in Yongnam.

    Check out he full article in my blog, SG Wealth Builder (www.sgwealthbuilder.com).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Gerald,

      Herd mentality indeed. Now i guess the herd is gone after the disappointing results since last quarter. Many of my friends bought at the high before it crashed. It was quite a hot stock before. It dropped from a high of 0.38 to a low of 0.23 now. Volume also low as compared to last time. Maybe its time to go in since the herd is not there now? Look at what happened to REITS too.

      Delete
    2. Hi SGYI

      How about it's free cash flow ? Or Does this company faces any cash flow problem ?

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    3. Hi Small Time Investor,

      Yongnam's cash flow was also affected due to the decrease in profits. Free cash flow is also negative. It's net cash flow from operating activities is 1.57 million and its capital expenditure is 55.98 million. However, it has trade receivables of 119.45 million for FY14 which i think will be more than enough to cover the negative free cash flows in FY13 unless its customers default on their payments. It also has cash & equivalents of 14.85 million. For the next year, there shouldn't be a problem in terms of cash flow for Yongnam.

      Delete
  2. 3 projects and the 2 so called one time. There is too many events for which unless you know the management well on their capability, should we err on the safe side ? Furthermore there is a limit on staff expense cut before we fall into the danger of downward spiral.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Cory,

      The management has a good track record on previous construction works. Of course there may still be errors like the 3 over run costs. Maybe i should email them to ask more in detail how they going to prevent that in the future. Construction sector faces the problem of a tight labour market and will persist for the rest of the year. Don't think they will be able to keep staff expense down.

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. Hi Uncle CW,

      If i'm not wrong, it's 3 out of about 10 projects. However, its only an estimation here.

      Delete
  4. This is old news known to people in the industry. Yongnam was bailed out previously by a listed company's big boss at the time when steel prices plunged drastically. Till now, I am not sure whether has they paid up the debt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kenneth,

      There's such thing that happened? I didn't know that. Thanks for informing.

      Delete