Parkson Retail Asia

Parkson Retail Asia: (The Edge) Buy for exposure to Asean’s retail mkt. Share price has surged recently, partly due to news that grp has formed a JV with Yoma, under which it will operate a small parkson department store in Yoma’s FMI Centre, targeted to open by March nxt yr. Last mth, the co. also marked its entry into Sri Lanka with the acquisition of a 41.8% stake in Colombo-listed fashion brand and retailer Odel for $13.6m, the grp’s first Foray beyond the borders of Asean. Grp’s strategy is to tackle the whole of Asean, Indochina and eventually Indian sub continent. Recall tat The Parkson grp was the first department store operator in Vietnam, and manage to came through the first yr with a negligible loss and were profitable by the second yr. Next yr, Park will likely be the first department store operator in Cambodia when it opens in Phnom Penh. Note that grp will take at least a yr to understand the Myanmar mkt . For FY12, grp saw rev +20.4% yoy to $442m, with plans to open 6 more stores in FY13. Analysts are mostly positive on the stock, noting that co. offers investors exposure into a multitude of high-growth countries over Msia, Vietnam, Indo and soon Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. DMG has Buy call and TP of $1.85, while CIMB has Buy Call and TP of $1.75.