FY13 results boosted by investment gains

FY13 PATMI increased by 59% to US$5.4m largely due to disposal of a hotel and other investments. On the other hand, operating cash flow increased by 1.75x to US$12.1m from US$4.4m, aided by ship finance arrangement fees and charter income. A dividend of 0.625 S-cents was proposed for FY13.
 

Plans to build up its ship chartering business

While the shipping industry is generally trying to cut capacity and move to bigger, more fuel-efficient ships, Uni-Asia’s management saw a pocket of opportunity in the smaller Handsize and Handymax bulk carriers. Management believes that the smaller carriers will still be in demand as they are capable of calling onto any ports, thus they plan to build up this business segment. Uni-Asia has 16 ships currently and an additional seven orders, where charter contracts have been secured for the new orders. Additionally, management guided the target fleet size is about 30 ships.
 

Stepping up Japan residential property development

Management guided that the Japan residential property market is picking up and recent projects have been well-received. Thus, they would step up their niche developments of small residential properties (~250sq ft/unit) in Tokyo.

We have no rating for Uni-Asia. According to Bloomberg, there is 1 BUY with S$0.29 target price. The counter is currently trading at 8.4x consensus PER.

Source: OCBC Research - 11 Mar 2014