End-Sep cash & equivalents of Bt24.33/share suggest very limited risk of further share price slippage. Moreover, if IMO2023 were to reduce the effective supply of shipping, container freight rates may start rising again. Under that scenario, we would expect RCL’s stock price to rally. However, freight rates are in a down-cycle and share price has almost hit our target, so we have shifted down our call from TRADING BUY to HOLD.
Big beat!
RCL posted a 3Q22 net profit of Bt6,428m, up 72% YoY but down 13% QoQ. The reported NPAT was 48% above our estimate. Stripping out extra items, core earnings would be Bt6,396m, up 71% YoY but down 3% QoQ. The core number was 48% above our estimate. Both core and net earnings beat our projections because revenue was higher than we had expected.