KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 13 — Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd’s stocks rose 3.7 per cent or five sen to RM1.39 at 11 am after announcing a surge of 920 per cent in its net profit to RM169.34 million in the second quarter ended July 31, 2019.
About 2.3 million units were transacted, with the shares rose as high as eight sen to RM1.42.
For the six month period, its net profit jumped to RM345.5 million from RM191.31 million.
In light of the better-than-expected six-month financial year 2020 (6MFY20) results, Affin Hwang Capital Research said it has raised Astro FY20-FY22 estimation core earnings by 11-13 per cent.
The upward revision was mainly to take into account lower operational costs, especially marketing and staff-related spending.
In tandem with the earnings upgrade, its discounted cash flow— derived target price was also revised higher to RM1.62 from RM1.50.
“Given the 21 per cent potential upside to the current share price, we upgraded Astro to ‘buy’ from a ‘hold’ previously,’ it added.
Meanwhile, MIDF Research revised target price for Astro to RM1.84 from RM1.74 previously.
“We are making upward adjustment to our FY20, FY21 and FY22 earnings by 7.8 per cent, 8.5 per cent and 5.9 per cent to RM675.8 million, RM686.7 million and RM696.0 million respectively as we are lowering further our cost assumptions,” it added. — Bernama
