Sector: Manufacturing
San Miguel Corporation
- Sector: Manufacturing
- Sub Sector: Diversified Conglomerates
- Region: Philippines
- Credit Rating (Moody’s/Standard & Poor’s/Fitch): O/P
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Fundamental View
AS OF 16 May 2023- SMC holds a dominant market position in various sectors of the Philippine economy, has a long operating track record, and a diversified business profile that provides greater earnings resilience.
- SMC incurs significant capex, particularly in its power/energy and infrastructure businesses. This could keep SMC’s credit metrics elevated and free cash flows negative.
- We remain concerned about the weak credit profile of its power arm SMC Global Power (SMC GP), and see heightened extension/refinancing risk for its $3.3 bn of perpetual bonds that are first callable in 2024-2026.
Business Description
AS OF 16 May 2023- SMC is a massive conglomerate in the Philippines with business interests across six business segments: Food & Beverage (F&B), fuel refining and retailing, power, packaging, infrastructure, and others.
- Its F&B business is operated through San Miguel Food & Beverage, the largest F&B company in the Philippines with three main divisions: Beer and Non-alcoholic Beverage (including beers and juices), Spirits (gin and Chinese wine), and Food (including packaged foods, animal feeds, poultry and fresh meats).
- SMC’s fuel refining and retailing business is operated through Petron Corporation (~68% stake), the largest oil refining and retailing company in the Philippines, and one of the largest in Malaysia. Petron has a total refining capacity of ~268k barrels/day.
- SMC’s power business is operated through SMC Global Power Holdings (SMC GP, 100% stake), one of the largest power generating companies in the Philippines. It maintains a diversified portfolio across coal (62%), natural gas (26%), and renewable energy (12%) sources.
- Through its packaging business, it manufactures glass containers, plastic crates, pellets, bottles and caps, aluminium cans, and other types of packaging products.
- It operates its Infrastructure business through San Miguel Holdings Corp (SMHC), in which it holds a 100% stake. It currently operates ~190 km of toll roads in the country, connecting high-traffic, arterial routes in Luzon.
Risk & Catalysts
AS OF 16 May 2023- SMC’s revenues are concentrated in the Philippines (~80%), which poses geographical concentration risk.
- SMC incurs significant capex, particularly in its power/energy and infrastructure businesses. In October 2020, SMC began construction of the mega New Manila International Airport (requires ~PHP 750 bn of capex spread over 5-7 years). This could keep SMC’s credit metrics elevated and free cash flows in negative territory.
- As a holding company, SMC is reliant on dividend upstreaming from its operating subsidiaries to service its debt, which can be difficult should the operating subsidiaries face cash flow difficulties. We are particularly concerned about SMC GP’s weak financial profile and extension/refinancing uncertainties of its $3.3 bn perpetuals that are first callable from 2024-2026.
- SMC operates in the businesses of thermal power generation and fuel refining, which may be looked at unfavourably by some ESG-focused investors.
Key Metrics
AS OF 22 May 2023
CreditSights View
AS OF 16 May 2023We have a Market perform recommendation on SMC. SMC’s Jul-2025 perp (mid-YTW: 10.1%) trades 400 bp wider than Ayala Corp’s c.Oct-2024 perp (mid-YTW: 6.1%), which we think is fair given SMC’s poorer net leverage (7.4x vs. 6.6x), worse liquidity position and heightened extension/refinancing risk of subsidiary SMC GP’s $3.3 bn of perps that negate SMC’s larger scale of EBITDA. We like SMC’s dominant market position in multiple sectors, long operating track record and diversified operations. Yet we acknowledge it incurs sizable capex that would likely keep its credit metrics elevated and free cash flows negative. We are also concerned about how SMC GP intends to refinance its wall of perps that are first callable in 2024-2026, which we think will be aided largely by parental support from SMC.
Recommendation Reviewed: May 16, 2023
Recommendation Changed: April 05, 2023
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Search topics about wealth insights and investments.Reliance Industries
- Sector: Manufacturing
- Sub Sector: Diversified Conglomerates
- Country: India
- Bond: RILIN 4.125 25
- Indicative Yield-to-Maturity (YTM): 5.531% (Indicative as of March 2)
- Credit Rating (Moody’s/Standard & Poor’s/Fitch): Baa2 / BBB+ / -M/P
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Fundamental View
AS OF 09 May 2023Reliance Industries (RIL) is positioned as India’s largest company by revenues, profits and exports. It enjoys a large, diversified scale of operations and dominates various key sectors (refining, petrochemicals, retail and telecom), which allow for earnings resilience.
RIL also plans to ramp up its presence in the renewable energy space, which could provide the next leg of growth and improve its ESG perception.
RIL incurs significant capex, particularly from heavy investments in 5G telecom and the renewables space (~INR 750 bn over the next 3 years). This has weighed on its free cash flow generation, though we acknowledge RIL’s historically prudent financial management and robust credit metrics that provide ample elbowroom for some credit profile deterioration.
Business Description
AS OF 09 May 2023- RIL is an Indian diversified conglomerate engaged in oil & gas refining, marketing, petrochemicals, organized retail, telecom and digital services, amongst others. It is the largest company in India by revenue, profits, exports and market capitalization (INR 14 tn).
- It is the second largest refiner in India and produces petroleum products such as petrol, high-speed diesel (HSD), aviation turbine fuel (ATF), LPG and lubricants.
- It is the largest petrochemicals producer in India, boasting production of ~38 mn tons in FY20. Through its integrated Jamnagar refinery complex, it produces Polymers/Plastics, Elastomers (synthetic rubber) and Polyester products.
- It is the largest retailer in India in terms of revenue. It operates 16.6k stores (as of September 2022) to sell products ranging from consumer electronics, fashion and lifestyle, grocery, petrol retail and telecom and digital services. It launched its online retail channel, 'JioMart', in December 2019.
- Reliance Jio is the largest mobile telecom operator by subscriber base (426 mn as of March 2021) in India and boasts the widest 4G wireless network in the country.
- In 2021, RIL announced investments to the tune of INR 750 bn/ $10 bn (for next 3 years) to build a renewable energy ecosystem which will include 4 giga factories. Set to be located in Gujarat, the factories will produce solar modules, hydrogen, fuel cells and battery grid to store electricity. Long-term goals also include building 100 GW of PV solar plants by 2030.
Risk & Catalysts
AS OF 09 May 2023RIL’s O2C (oil-to chemicals) business margins have been under pressure owing to the squeeze in key downstream chemical product margins (i.e. an absolute decline in product prices vs. feedstock prices), which impacted polymer and aromatics margins.
RIL incurs significant capex, particularly from heavy investments in 5G telecom and the renewables space (~INR 750 bn over the next 3 years). This has weighed on its free cash flow generation, though we acknowledge RIL’s historically prudent financial management and robust credit metrics that provide ample elbowroom for some credit profile deterioration.
RIL faces key-person risk; 65-year old Chairman Mukesh Ambani has begun to hand over the reins of RIL’s different business divisions to his children.
Key Metrics
AS OF 22 May 2023
CreditSights View
AS OF 09 May 2023We have a Market perform recommendation on RIL. We think RIL’s bonds trade fairly to similarly rated Indian peers Bharti Airtel and BPCL. We like RIL’s large, diversified scale of operations and dominant market shares in key sectors (refining, petrochemicals, retail and telecom) that allow for earnings resilience. RIL also plans to ramp up its presence in the renewable energy space, which could provide the next leg of growth and improve its ESG perception. While we remain aware of RIL’s elevated capex needs could persist over the next 2-3 years, we think the impact is mitigated by RIL’s historically prudent financial management and healthy credit metrics that provide ample elbowroom for some credit profile deterioration.
Recommendation Reviewed: May 09, 2023
Recommendation Changed: June 30, 2021
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