03-05-2007: Kenanga Research maintains strong buy on AsiaEP

Kenaga Research has maintained a "strong buy" on AsiaEP Bhd at RM1.09, with a revised 12-month target price of RM2.25 on the back of earnings upgrade for FY08 and FY09.

“We are raising our FY08 and FY09 net profit forecast by 11% and 12.4% to RM11.2 million and RM24.5 million, respectively,” it said in a report on April 30.

Kenanga Research said the upgraded target price was based on the basic FY09 price earnings ratio of 20 times. It said AsiaEP’s B2B Itah Search Engine (ItahSe) would drive earnings momentum further.

Kenanga Research said there had been an encouraging jump in the number of sponsored advertisements on b2b.itah.com over the past one month, which will translate into solid earnings numbers.

It said AsiaEP's FY07 revenue, pre-tax profit and net profit exceeded its earlier estimates by 14.4%, 42.8% and 43.5%, respectively due to the stronger-than-expected 4Q results.

The strong results were due to the adoption of the pay per click or PPC revenue model for the existing e-marketplace customers, which boosted revenue in an otherwise seasonally slow period.

AsiaEP also saw lower operating costs and, therefore, higher operating profit margins under the new PPC-revenue model. It also benefited from the write-back of depreciation and amortisation amounting to RM300,000 due to earlier over-provisions.