Trinidad’s Republic Financial Holdings should be heading higher on Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange, sooner than many investors may think.
One reason is that the financial powerhouse, just posted pretty strong results, with profit before taxation rising a healthy 22 percent, to $490 million in the March quarter and a still respectable 14 percent for the half year. Increased taxation wiped out a bit a of the top line gains leaving profit at 3 percent higher for the quarter at $333 million and an increase of 4 percent at $694 million, for the half year. The improvement arose from slightly lower cost in the current year than for the previous one and an overall 8 percent increase in net income for the quarter to $1.17 billion from $1.08 billion in 2017 and 4 percent rise year to date to $2.34 billion. Earnings per share rose to $4.02 for the half year from $3.90 and compares favourably with $7.75 million reported for the fiscal year to September 2017 and gives it a PE around 12 on 2018 full year earnings and Friday’s closing price of $101,
Improvement was generated by the bank in Ghana, where that subsidiary moved from a small loss of just over $1 million to a profit of $68 million and the Cayman Islands’ operations that moved from a profit of $82 million to $113 million. Barbados also should marked improvement with profit of $149 million compared to $111 million before.
Helping the performance is increased lending, with loans rising from $34.4 billion at March 2017 to $37.4 million in 2018, a solid 9 percent increase.
The other factor why the stock price is set to move, is that the it peaked at $122 in 2014 and slid downward since and seems to have found a bottom. Added to that, is a wedge formation showing in a technical chart of its price movement that seems set to steer the price upwards in the months ahead.
IC Insider.com would normally give the stock a BUY RATED accolade, concerns linger about the Trinidad economy from which it earns the vast majority of income and profit, and what is seen as an overvalued currency.
Note that all prices are in Trinidad & Tobago dollar.
