June 21, 2010

AFG - AmResearch maintains buy call on AFG

Stock Name: AFG
Company Name: ALLIANCE FINANCIAL GROUP BHD
Research House: AMMB

Alliance Financial Group Bhd
(June 18, RM2.90)
Maintain buy at RM2.80 with fair value of RM3.30
: Alliance Financial Group (AFG) announced that its subsidiary, Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd, has appointed Sng Seow Wah as its new group CEO. Approval for the appointment was obtained from Bank Negara Malaysia last Thursday.

AFG said Sng is an experienced banker with more than 24 years of experience. He was executive vice-president and head of enterprise banking (EB) at OCBC Bank in Singapore where he led the successful transformation of the business into a sustainable, high-performing unit.

In the years under his leadership, the EB business produced consistently excellent results and high employee engagement ratings.

Prior to his stint with OCBC Bank in Singapore, Sng was with Citibank Singapore where he established and led the emerging local corporate (ELC), a business unit, which covered commercial banking.

His portfolio was later expanded with his appointment as managing director of the local corporate group. Before joining Citibank, Sng held senior commercial and corporate banking positions in Westpac Banking Corp and Banque Nationale De Paris.

Sng was the head of human resources, special projects and corporate communications at Fullerton Financial Holdings (International) Pte Ltd before his appointment as Alliance Bank Malaysia's group CEO. He is expected to commence his appointment in July 2010.

The news is not entirely a surprise given that the press had on May 18 reported on Sng's possible appointment. We view the news positively as this will allow the banking group to move ahead.

We maintain our buy call on AFG with fair value of RM3.30 per share. This is based on fair P/BV of 1.6 times, on unchanged ROE of 11.6% FY11F. Catalysts for the stock are higher-than-expected ROEs and loan growth.

The group is targeting loan growth in the low teen level for FY11F. Our sensitivity analysis shows that should loan growth come in stronger at around the 11% target FY11F (our forecast: 6.6%), we are looking at a further upgrade to fair value by 20 sen per to RM3.50. ' AmResearch Sdn Bhd, June 18


This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, June 21, 2010.


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