Core views:
Nanhua Futures Announces 2023 Annual Results Advance Notice: It is expected to achieve net profit of 380 million yuan to 410 million yuan in 2023, an increase of 54.43% to 66.63% over the previous year. The company expects to achieve net profit of 395 million yuan to 427 million yuan after deducting non-recurring profit and loss attributable to the owners of the parent company in 2023, an increase of 64.77% to 78.12% over the previous year. If we take the average value of 38-41 million yuan, the company's net profit for the whole year was 40 million yuan, then the 2023Q1-Q4 net profit for the single quarter was 0.63, 1.06, 1.30, and 96 million yuan, respectively. However, it is worth noting that net profit after deducting non-net profit was 427 million yuan for the whole year. Also calculated according to the average value, Q4 generated a profit of about 112 million yuan.
Continued interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve boosted profit growth throughout the year. According to Wind data, the 10-year US Treasury yield increased all the way from around 3.8% in early 2023 to around 4.9% in October 2023.
On average, according to Wind, the yield on 10-year US Treasury bonds for the full year of 2023 was about 4.0%, an increase of 100 bps compared to 3.0% in 2022. However, Nanhua Futures has the advantage of overseas futures trading licenses, leading other Chinese futures companies in setting up overseas markets. Compared with other players in the industry, Nanhua Futures has a large scale of overseas equity, and corresponding margin deposits drive continuous growth in interest income in an environment of interest rate hikes.
Continued growth in the size of overseas equity supports performance. (1) The wholly-owned subsidiary Henghua International has licenses for global core market futures, securities, asset management, etc., while major domestic peers have only obtained licenses in Hong Kong or Singapore, China, and most have not even obtained overseas licenses. (2) According to the company's 2023 semi-annual report, as of 23H1, the amount of overseas equity was HK$141 billion, yoy +33.24%. Furthermore, the company continues to increase overseas investment, and the share of overseas assets reached 30% by the end of 2022.
Profit forecasting and investment advice. The estimated revenue for 2024 is 6.8 billion yuan, and net profit to mother is 50 billion yuan (yoy +23%). Based on the 2024 EPS of 0.8 yuan, considering the futures exchange revenue reduction plan to optimize the industry and the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut expectations in 2024, refer to Tongye Yongan and Ruida Futures, and give the 2024 PE valuation to 20x, corresponding to a reasonable value of 16.4 yuan/share, maintaining the company's “increase in holdings” rating.
Risk warning. Economic downturn lowers processing fees, regulatory crackdowns, interest income falls short of expectations, etc.