Equity Analysis and Investment Recommendation on Singapore Press Holdings

You are required to use publicly available information, including the usage of Refinitiv (formerly Thomson Reuters) Eikon, to analyse a publicly listed company. The aim is to prepare a report which provides an assessment of the company’s current position and future prospects, and which incorporates the use of a range of valuation models to arrive at an estimate of the company’s share price and make a recommendation of buy, sell, or hold.
This assessment replicates an equity analysis, valuation and investment recommendation tasks that would be undertaken by an investment or a security analyst in the professional world.

Individual Presentation - The aim of the presentation is to explain and justify the buy/sell/hold recommendation to potential investors.
 
You are required to analyse SINGAPORE PRESS HOLDINGS and prepare an investment recommendation report. The report provides an assessment of the company's current position and future prospect, incorporating the use of various valuation techniques to arrive at estimates of the intrinsic value of the company's shares. Your report should make a case for the company's shares to be rated in one of the following ways:

Sell. The shares should be sold, as a materially negative return is anticipated in the next six to 12 months.

Hold. The shares will have neither a materially positive return nor a materially negative return in the next six to 12 months.

Buy. The shares should be bought, as a materially positive return is expected in the next six to 12 months.

Company Analysis

Provide an overview of the company's history, operation and any structural changes it has undergone since it began. This is to understand how the company got to where it is today and what may occur in the future.

Industry Analysis

Analyse the structure of the industry in which the firm operates and whether it is domestic-focussed or has a global nature. Identify the industry's major companies and where and they operate.

Evaluate the relative historical financial performance of the company among its peers

• identify the firm's major competitors and discuss why they have been selected

• identify, and explain the relevance of, five financial ratios of your choice (not to include ROE, Net Profit Margin, Total Asset Turnover or Financial Leverage) for the company and its peers over a historical period of five financial years.

• explain the performance of the company compared to its peers using this analysis

> analyse and explain the reasons for changes in these ratios over the past five years and compared to the average of the past five years

>do not simply describe the changes in the ratios

Estimate the ROE of the company and three major competitors for the most recent five years using the DuPont ROE approach.

• DuPont Analysis should be done using the 3-step procedure

>3 steps: Net Profit Margin, Total Asset Turnover and Financial Leverage

• analyse the company's and your selected peer companies' ROEs over the period

• show your own calculations for each component over the previous five years for the company and its three selected competitors

• compare the DuPont ROE of the company with its three peer group companies

>analyse and comment on the reasons for the change in ROE for the firm and its competitors with reference to the difference in the three components over five years

>relevant charts/graphs should be used to illustrate these figures

Analyse the company's/industry's current issues and explain the effect of these issues on the company's future earnings

a) At the Macroeconomic Level

• general factors that apply for the industry (GDP, employment, growth of the industry, regulation, global factors, supply, demand, prices of inputs and outputs, etc.)

b)  At the Microeconomic Level

• the company- and industry-specific factors (operation, financials, objectives, competition, etc.)

c) As a SWOT analysis

• detail the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to the company

d) As either a PESTEL or a Porter analysis

• analyse the company's position in its industry using one of these technique