BUY: HandsomeHandsome, a Korean clothing company, is successfully winning the hearts of the high-income brackets with its prestige clothing brands, says Korea Investment & Securities.
The fashion company’s sales from the department stores make up over 70 percent out of its total revenue, which is the greatest portion among clothing companies in Korea. Its brand portfolio consists mostly of high-price, prestige brands, according to the securities company.
Handsome’s first quarter sales increased 19 percent year-on-year, and the brokerage house estimates its operational profit to be up 40 percent compared to last year.
As for the sales of second quarter, the Korea Investment says that number will jump around 15 percent year-on-year, since the imported brands such as LANVIN COLLECTION and TIME are showing positive signs of further increasing its sales.
The portion of LANVIN COLLECTION to the total sales of Handsome increased from 17 percent to 21 percent so far this year.
BUY: OCIShinhan Investment Corporation placed OCI, a chemical company in Korea, in its recommendation list last Friday.
It says that the increased investment in its branch in America, and the rising demand for solar energy would boost its sales.
After the outbreak of the Fukushima incident, countries are showing some signs of phasing out from the excessive reliance on nuclear power, which encourages people to use alternative energies such as solar power, says Shinhan.
This January OCI acquired a 76-percent stake of CornerStone Power Development, a Chicago-based solar-energy company, for $36.1 million.
Hana Daetoo Securities also says that China’s tightening policy on polysilicon plants in January is playing a positive role for OCI’s profits.
The policy is pushing the less-efficient producers of polysilicon out of the market.
Last Thursday OCI announced that it will raise $631.4 million from an issue of GDRs (Global Depository Receipts) which are to be listed on Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited.
The company explains the purpose of raising funds is to set-up more factories to meet the rising demand for polysilicon.
OCI is planning to build its fourth and fifth factories at Gunsan and Saemangeum respectively.
SELL: SL CorporationSamsung Securities removed SL Corporation, a manufacturer of automobile parts, from its recommendation list, due to the cashing-out
of institutional investors. Samsung said that foreigners and private investors will likely follow suit to cut losses.
Dongbu Securities also degraded its evaluation on SL from “purchase” to “neutral.”
The securities company says that the poor performance of SL in the fourth quarter needs to be taken into account.
Although the sales increased 42.6 percent year-on-year to $123 million during the period, operating profit fell 30.3 percent to $4.7 million due to rising costs incurred by the release of new models of its products.
Dongbu also added that the stock price of SL has been climbing too much in the past two years and the price needs an adjustment.
Since SL shares hit bottom at 1,920 won in October 2008, it has jumped more than twelve-fold to date.
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