CICC: Maintains "Outperform Industry" rating for The Pacific Shipping (02343), lowers target price to HK$2.1

CICC released a research report stating that it maintains the rating of "outperforming the industry" for The Pacific Shipping (02343), with the target price lowered by 30% to 2.1 Hong Kong dollars. Due to lower-than-expected freight rates since the beginning of the year, the bank has lowered its profit forecast for 2025 by 43.4% to 157 million US dollars. It has also introduced a profit forecast for 2026 for the first time, at 175 million US dollars. Considering the adjustment of profit forecasts, the bank believes that the valuation and dividends are attractive, but the industry risk preference is increasing. CICC pointed out that The Pacific Shipping announced its full-year performance for 2024. The revenue was 2.582 billion US dollars, an increase of 12.4% compared to the previous year, and the net profit was 132 million US dollars, with a basic earnings per share of 2.54 cents, an increase of 20.4% year-on-year. The company's performance was slightly lower than the bank's expectations, mainly due to the TCE freight rates achieved in the second half of the year being slightly lower than expected by the bank.