#Old Mutual Securities
We initiate coverage on Equity Bank with a
BUY recommendation based on a
fair value of KES 40.74, implying 21% upside potential from the current market price. Our investment case is informed by the expected 11.09% earnings growth in FY2013E. The Bank is trading on a forward PE of 7.5x, PBV 2.25x and ROE 30.5%. The Country economic outlook is expected to increase over the coming years (Kenya government forecast of 5.6%, World Bank forecast of 5.9% in FY13E), where we believe the banking sector will be a major beneficiary. We believe that the loan book growth (5 year CAGR of 10.39% to 2017F) will drive growth in net interest income; in addition, the increased transactional income from the current 8.3M customers will drive non-funded income.
Agency banking should reduce the cost to income ratio (to 48.12 % in FY13E) and help keep cost of funds low by attracting low cost deposits. For FY13E, we estimate an EPS of KES 4.53 (+38.85% y/y) with lending in the next 2 quarters expected to make up for the modest growth in 1Q13.
The Bank is the largest listed bank in terms of customer numbers, with a customer base of 8.3 Million and second largest in terms of asset base, which stands at KES 261.5B after KCB with an asset base of KES 369.54B.
The pioneer bank in agency banking model is well positioned to take the model regional.
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http://www.oldmutual.co.ke/v5/d...uritiesReportBanking.pdf