[ET Net News Agency, 9 January 2020] Goldman Sachs lifted its target price for Nine
Dragons Paper (NDP)(02689) to HK$9.8 from HK$6 and upgraded its rating to "buy" from
"neutral".
The research house revised earnings estimates for NDP by +9% for FY2020, +127% for
FY2021, and +155% for FY2022 to reflect its updated view on the containerboard margin
outlook.
Goldman expects demand recovery at 2.8% for 2020 and output growth at only 0.8% due to a
tightened supply of raw material despite accelerated new additions. Driven by the demand
recovery, it expects linerboard spread to improve by Rmb150/t in 2020 as Goldman expects
to see tightness in linerboard supply with limited room for rising imports under less
favourable price parity and less imported waste paper.
It estimated NDP currently has 57% sales volume from linerboard. Hence, Goldman expects
unit GP to improve to Rmb617/t in FY2021 from Rmb525/t in FY2020. (KL)