Dear Readers

Let's jump right into Malakoff Corporation Bhd ("Malakoff").

Introduction

Malakoff is an independent power and water producer. Its businesses consist of the generation of power (in the form of electricity) and desalination of water (a process of removing salts and minerals from saline water).

The main bulk of Malakoff's business is in Malaysia where it has a capacity to generate, from burning gas, oil and coal, about 6,346 megawatts/MW of electricity (that's about 6.3 million watts).

On the international stage, Malakoff has a capacity of producing 690MW of electricity and a desalination capacity of 444,800 m3/day of water from assets in Australia (windmill farm), Saudi Arabia (water desalination and power), Bahrain (water desalination), Oman (water desalination) and Algeria (water desalination).

Malakoff has a simple business model. From the assets which it owns (in full) or co-owns, Malakoff generates power or desalinates water which they sell to  national grids or water utility companies.

Financials

To dissect the financials of Malakoff, I have prepared a simple table in which I only considered Malakoff's financials since its initial public offering in 2015.

What strikes me the most is Malakoff's high debt to equity ratio (~4.2). That comes without surprise as Malakoff is in an infrastructure business which requires a lot of capital expenditure. I am of a personal opinion that Malakoff's debts would not a constraining factor because of its fair cash flow.

Malakoff's debts (secured long term debts and by issuance of bonds) are mainly in RM (86%), AUD (12%) and USD (2%). Foreign currency denominated debts are small thus posing negligible exchange rate exposure.

Malakoff's profit margin is slim (to the tune of 5-8%). Again, that is unsurprising as it is in a wholesale business to selling power and desalinated water.

Even though revenue has seen an increase of about 15% from FY2015 to FY2016, what raises eyebrows is the decline of its earnings. According to Malakoff, its earnings were negatively impacted because of the change in the estimation of the residual values of its gas-fired power plants (remaining value of an asset after it has been fully depreciated) and a reduced tariff of an extended power purchase agreement for its Port Dickson power plant (selling power at a lower tariff).

Potentials

The initial public offering share price of Malakoff, in 2015, was RM1.80. Malakoff's share price, at the time of writing, is RM1.22. That is in tandem with the decreased earnings in FY2016. On the bright side, there is definitely a discount of  32%.

Malakoff is embarking on an ambitious plan to acquire at least 10 power producing brownfield assets (existing assets which can be remodeled or modified) with the hope of achieving a 10,000MW power-production and 530,000 m3/day of water desalination capacity by 2020. It is looking at the European or Australian market.

EDIT: It appears that there are two conflicting reports from 2 different news portals as to whether Malakoff is considering 10 opportunities or at least 10 assets for purchase. My appreciation to rooney8 for pointing out the discrepancies. The links to the 2 different news portals are listed below:

1. http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2017/04/19/malakoff-looks-at-buying-10-power-generation-assets/
2. http://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/malakoff-focus-international-market

Such feat is ambitious noting that Malakoff's current assets of RM30 billion are only producing about 7,500MW and 444,800 m3/day of desalinated water.

Conclusion

In my opinion, the attractive points concerning Malakoff are:

1. the 32% discount on its share price from its listing price; and
2. that it adheres, at least for now, to its dividend distribution policy of distributing at least 70% of its profit to shareholders.

If all things being equal next year, a dividend of 7 sen per share would translate into a dividend yield of 5.7% @ RM1.22 per share. This is every dividend portfolio's wet dream.

If you are have a long-term investment horizon, Malakoff may look like an attractive proposition as any downside would be minimal as opposed to a potential upside albeit gradual.

Disclosure

I do not own Malakoff's shares.

For more info, visit my blog @ https://bursagoinglong.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/analysis-of-malakoff-corporation-bhd/