Citi released a research report that predicts that Prudential (01299.HK) will announce its first-half results in late August. It is predicted that the new business value in the first half of the year will increase by 24% and 20% annually according to fixed and actual exchange rates, respectively. In other words, even under the impact of regulatory factors and the high base in the same period of last year for Hong Kong, China, and India business, the new business value in the second quarter this year still recorded a stable growth of 16% and 13%.
The bank predicts that the contract service profit (CSM) balance of Prudential will increase by 1% compared to the end of last year, reaching 53.6 billion US dollars, including about 1.5 billion US dollars in exchange losses. The estimated post-tax net profit will increase by 2% annually to 3.4 billion US dollars, mainly from the strong release of CSM, and the estimated post-tax net profit per share after repurchase will increase by 6% annually.
Based on the mid-term performance prediction, the bank will adjust the earnings per share forecast for 2024 to 2026 down by 4%, 2%, and 2% respectively, and the target price will be slightly reduced from 100 yuan to 99 yuan, rated as "buy".