Credit Suisse Upgrades CPF’s TP to ฿40, Expecting Swine Prices to Remain High in 2H!

Credit Suisse has upgraded the target price of Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited (CPF) from ฿37.50/share to ฿40.00/share and revised up the earnings by 2-9% to factor in the improving swine price environment in 2H20.

 

For two consecutive months, Thailand has shown a sequential improvement over the swine prices, in which Credit Suisse expected the healthy environment will continue throughout 2H20 as the regional swine price would remain high, mainly due to the African Swine Fever outbreak (ASF).

 

Vietnam, one of the most affected countries on the ASF and the most-pork consumer in the region, has allowed imports of live hogs for slaughter and breeding hogs from Thailand for the first time to curb the hog price, which showed tightness in regional supply.

The country has been importing frozen pork from the U.S., Brazil, etc. since last year, but the prices remain relatively higher. However, Vietnamese usually consume fresh pork, while import pork will be used for processed foods.

Even with the import of live hogs for breeding, it requires six months for new breeding sows to generate a more sustained new swine supply, according to a general hog production cycle. Thus, the tightness in supply could remain until the end of this year.

 

Credit Suisse forecasts CPF’s revenue in 2020 to come in at 564 billion baht, increasing 6% YoY, while CPF’s net profit is expected to increase by 35.5% to 18.1 billion baht.