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The articles in the blog are intended for informational purposes only, with the aim of encouraging thoughtful discussions. The articles should not be relied upon as financial advice. Please read the important disclaimer at the bottom of the page before proceeding.

Valuing CapitaLand Post-Restructuring


 

I wrote about CapitaLand’s restructuring awhile back, taking a more qualitative approach to understand CapitaLand Investment Management’s (“CLIM”) business. This follow up post discusses how I would value CLIM, based on a sum of the parts (“SOTP”) analysis of its three main revenue sources – 1) Value CLIM’s stake in its REITs and Private Funds, 2) Value of Investment Properties, and 3) Value of Investment Management and Property Management Platform.

The SOTP analysis would give us the implied intrinsic value of CLIM, and if we were to compare that against the deal on the table now, which includes CICT shares as well as a cash portion, we can then decide whether it presents a compelling opportunity.

Capital Structure of CLIM



Firstly, based on the restructuring announcement in March, I estimated the level of debt CLIM is expected to carry. The announcement noted that CLIM would hold c.23.4 billion of assets, while the NAV of CLIM would be 14.7 billion. Working backwards, we would arrive at a debt level of 8.7 billion, in order to reconcile the amount of assets and net asset value. Of course, there would be a certain amount of net working capital (cash, receivables, payables etc), but we would exclude that for now as this information is unavailable.

Value of CLIM’s stake in its REITs and Private Funds




As the investment manager of these public and private funds, CLIM holds sizeable stakes in these funds, so that they have skin in the game and the interests of the manager and unitholders are aligned. The value of CLIM’s stakes in the REITs can be easily calculated based on the latest share prices of these REITs. For the Private Funds, we would have to use the value provided in March – 7.8 billion, and I adjusted that to reflect the same 1.5% decrease in value as its REITs. Note that post-restructuring, because of the units of CICT distributed, CLIM would hold 22.9% of CICT.

Value of CLIM’s Investment Properties

The restructuring involves the transfer of a number of investment properties to CLIM, which includes both commercial, retail and business park properties, with the view of eventually injection these assets into the REITs or selling them off to third party buyers. The value of these investment properties was stated to be 10.1 billion in the restructuring announcement. Given that the value of these properties we as of 31 Dec 2020, I believe an appropriate approximation would be to look at the price to book rations of comparable public REITs, and apply that to CLIM’s investment properties.



I computed the latest P/B ratios of Singapore listed REITs in similar sectors and arrived at an average P/B ratio of 0.92x. Do note that if we apply this P/B multiple to CLIM’s investment properties, we would we using a conservative estimate, as the P/B of the REITs are applied on NAV, whereas we would be applying the P/B multiple to the asset value of CLIM’s investment properties (without debt).

Value of CLIM’s Investment Management & Property Management Platform

CAPL currently has funds under management (“FUM”) of 79.2 billion as of Mar 2021, with a 100 billion FUM target by 2024. The acquisition of Ascendas Singbridge in 2019 provided a substantial boost to FUM. Going forward, CAPL has just announced its registration as a PE fund manager in China, which would allow it to further grow its FUM in China.



Valuing this business segment is probably the most subjective, yet it is the most lucrative segment of CLIM. In fact, one of the key reasons for the restructuring process was because CAPL’s management believes that the market does not realise the true value of the Investment Management platform, which is asset light, highly scalable and delivers a predictable stream of income. Currently, CAPL reports income from its fund management and property management/service residence platform separately, but going forward, CLIM would consolidate these figures for reporting, as “Total Fee Income”. The fund management platform has an average EBITDA margin of c.56% from 2017 to 2020, which indicates strong profitability and even rivals that of top tech companies. Given that there would be little depreciation and amortization for an asset light business segment, I estimated that the net profit margin for the investment management platform (Fund Management, Property Management and Serviced Residence) would be 25%.

The “Total Fee Income” figures reported by CAPL is computed by including fee income from consolidated REITs before elimination at group level, which I understand it to be the total fee income that REIT unitholders pay on a 100% basis. However, CAPL’s proportionate stake would have to be eliminated at group level; for example, if CAPL owns 30% of the REITs’ units, then the “actual” total fee income would only be 70% of the reported “Total Fee Income” as 30% of that is a related party transaction.

Using the “Total Fee Income” reported in the 1Q 2021 Business Update, CAPL earned Total Fee Income of 186.7 million and 203.6 million for 1Q ’20 and 1Q 21 respectively. On a run rate basis, Total Fee Income for FY21 would then be 814 million. Given that CAPL’s average stake in its REITs is 28.5%, the net amount of “Total Fee Income” would be 582.3 million. Using the 25% net profit margin mentioned above, the Investment Management segment would generate a net profit of 145.6 million. The restructuring announcement noted that comparable Real Estate Investment Managers trade at an average forward P/E multiple of 19.4x, thus I applied a 20x P/E multiple to value CLIM’s investment management platform.

SOTP Valuation

Based on the individual valuations of the three business segments, I computed the SOTP valuation of CLIM, using both CAPL’s current share capital as well as the fully diluted share capital:


 


I then computed CAPL’s implied share price, which includes the distribution of CICT shares and the cash consideration:


 

Risks

This valuation of CAPL assumes that the restructuring would be approved by shareholders, and also that the scheme conditions are not breached - for example, the Material Adverse Change clause that I have written about

Conclusion

Based on the SOTP valuation of CLIM, we arrive at an implied target price of $4.46 (current share capital) and $4.31 (fully diluted share capital) for CAPL, indicating an upside of 21% and 17% respectively from the closing price of $3.68 on 25 Jun 21.  

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Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational and discussion purposes only, and do not constitute financial advice. When in doubt, please contact a licensed financial adviser.

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