Hong Kong-listed Cosco Pacific rebounds after falling 29 percent in recent weeks
Hong Kong-listed Cosco Pacific Ltd rose sharply on Friday on renewed investor interest in the stock following its steep falls in recent weeks.
Cosco Pacific's shares tumbled from a 12-month high of 26.85 Hong Kong dollars on October 2 to 19.02 dollars Thursday, in line with the decline of the broader market.
The stock ended the morning session up 98 cents or 5.2 percent at 20 dollars, off a high of 20.45 dollars.
Investors had been exiting Cosco on worries that a slowdown in the US economy will hurt exports out of China and earnings at the container terminal operator.
Earlier this week, Deutsche Bank upgraded its rating on the stock to ""buy"" from ""hold"" on its attractive valuation after the recent correction.
""The stock is now trading at 15 times its expected price earnings ratio in 2008, which is at an attractive 40 percent discount to the average for the China Port universe,"" analyst Simon Cheng said in a research note.
Deutsche Bank has a target price of 22.71 dollars on the stock.
Cosco Pacific's revenue in the first half of 2007 dropped 12.9 percent to 147.33 million US dollars but Deutsche Bank expects the company to bounce back with a better performance in 2008.
""We expect that Cosco's earnings growth momentum will be back on track as the transformation of the container box leasing business into a sale and lease back model is maturing,"" said Cheng.
""In addition, positive yields from the turnaround of COSCO's early-stage port projects should also accelerate growth in its core port operations,"" he said.
Cosco Pacific's container throughput at its ports rose 14.2 percent in October to 3.5 million 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs).
Throughput in the 10 months to October rose 20 percent to 32.33 million TEUs from a year earlier, boosted in part by new handling capacity.
On Wednesday, Cosco and its units entered into three agreements to sell marine container boxes worth 241.2 million US dollars.
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