INTUCH Jumps 9% on Speculation of Booking Full Dividend Payout from ADVANC

The share price of Intouch Holdings Public Company Limited (INTUCH) rose ฿5.75/share or 8.71% to ฿71.75/share in the morning session on Wednesday, August 11, with a trading value of 3,009 million baht.

The price of INTUCH increased in response to trading room speculation that INTUCH and Advanced Info Service Public Company Limited (ADVANC) will boost dividend payouts to 100% of consolidated net profit, which would result in Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited (GULF), as a major shareholder of INTUCH who owned stake around 42.00%, achieving a greater dividend income in 3Q21.

As of August 4, 2021, GULF owned a total of 1,354,752,952 shares in INTUCH, which is equivalent to 42.25% shareholding stake.

Previously, INTUCH announced 2Q21 earnings along with an interim dividend payment of 1.23 baht per share. Based on the total share held by GULF, the company would record 1.67 billion baht as dividend income.

Krungsri Securities (KSS) stated in reference to GULF’s conference regarding the business directions that GULF will categorize its business units into three; 1) energy infrastructure, 2) logistics infrastructure and 3) digital infrastructure. Following INTUCH’s acquisition, all investment in digital infrastructure will take place via INTUCH’s group; for the short-term strategic move on INTUCH group, GULF will ask INTUCH’s group (including ADVANC and THCOM) to pay dividend at the optimal level. In addition, GULF will try to optimize all assets under INTUCH’s group; while for the longer term, GULF sees synergies through ADVANC and THCOM. This includes smart grid, smart meter, data center and cloud computing etc.

Therefore, KSS estimated that the final dividend payment for ADVANC would possibly rise to 100% from 75%. And a 100% dividend payout ratio would be sustained in 2022 onward. This implies the dividend yield of 4.6% (from 3.5% annualized) for 2H21 and 5.1% in 2022 from 3.6%. For INTUCH, dividend yield in 2H21 would hike to 4.8% from 3.7% and up to 5.3% in 2022.