Rare Earth Prices Stabilized; Expecting Profit to Rally
发布时间:2024-09-04 来源:华泰金融(HK)
1H24 attributable NP down 95.7% yoy in 1H24; OVERWEIGHT
China Northern Rare Earth Group High-Tech’s (CNRE) 1H24 revenue/attributable NP were RMB12,990/45.40mn (-21.19/-95.70% yoy); for 2Q24, they were RMB+7,228/-6.66mn (-0.33/-104.96% yoy, +25.45/-112.79% qoq). Given greater rare earth price volatilities in 1H24, we lower our per-tonne profit estimate for CNRE, and project 2024/2025/2026 EPS at RMB0.38/0.87/1.23 (previous: RMB0.53/1.19/1.52). Given the drag of rare earth prices to CNRE’s earnings in 2024, we value the stock at 20.39x 2025E PE, in line with its peers’ average on Wind consensus, for our target price of RMB17.74 (previous: RMB19.37). Maintain OVERWEIGHT.
Enhanced 2Q24 GPM qoq on a stabilization in rare earth prices
Per its 1H24 results, CNRE’s overall GPM/NPM sank 4.84/5.68pp yoy to 7.96/1.77% in 1H24, with those in 2Q24 changing by +0.54/-0.67pp yoy to 8.20/1.47%. The qoq GPM rebound in 2Q24 was chiefly due to enhanced per-tonne profit after rare earth prices stabilized. Cost wise, expense ratio for 1H24 rose 0.58pp yoy to 5.02%, which was 4.21% (-1.81pp qoq) in 2Q24, primarily driven by decreases in administrative and R&D expenses. In addition, changes in fair value/asset & credit impairment provisions dented CNRE’s NP by over RMB150mn, main reasons behind the qoq NPM decrease, in our view.
Output and sales volume of all segments rose rapidly in 1Q24
In 2Q24, CNRE’s rare earth production and sales volume rose buoyantly based on its acquired quotas, with output of rare earth oxides/salts/metals at 2,901/35,112/11,113 tonnes (-46.21/+14.10/+62.44% yoy) and sales volumes at 10,725/23,577/9,194 tonnes (+121.61/20.25/32.97% yoy). Cost wise, the 2Q24 concentrate cost was RMB16.8k/tonne (-18.8% qoq), per company announcement. The latest concentrate procurement cost is RMB16.7k/tonne for 3Q24, largely flat qoq. With rebounding rare earth prices, we expect CNRE’s profit to stabilize and rally in 3Q24.
S/D dynamics turnaround of rare earth to emerge
On 20 August, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Natural Resources announced quotas for rare earth mining/rare earth smelting & separation (second batch in 2024) at 135/127k tonnes, and the total quotas for the first two batches in 2024 rose 12.5/10.4% vs those in 2023, pointing to a slowdown in growth of domestic rare earth indicators. We therefore think the long-term turnaround for rare earth prices is just in sight. In the short term, rare earth prices are showing signs of an uptrend amid the approaching busy season, and we expect the trend of rare earth price rally to sustain.
Risks: weaker downstream demand than we expect; weaker capacity expansion than we expect.