COVID-19 to Omicron: Three Years On

When the pandemic broke out in 2019, we had no idea how crazy this could get. I have always been a fairly optimistic person and I thought we should be done in 12 months, if not 18 months. The world will quickly revert to normal because humans are creatures of habit and we like to go back to our old ways of lives as soon as we can. This is why losing weight is so difficult and why we cannot really change and become something we are not. 

We are entering the third year into the pandemic now and things are not looking optimistic. New habits are now being formed which may replace old ones permanently. For instance, we may not need to meet everyone face-to-face going forward. Zoom or virtual meetings can easily become say 60% of all our meetings and old style phonecalls may still make up 20%. So the last 20% of face-to-face meetings will be saved for the most important, most precious counterparties.

The big question is whether we will still fly as we used to. When the pandemic first broke, the airline industry quickly made a prediction: we will only get back to 2019's level of passenger volume by 2025. This was based on the experience from the 9-11 attack back in 2001. At first, I didn't want to believe that. We are so used to flying, how can that be true? Three years on, it now seemed likely, or perhaps, it could take even longer, since we are still only at 40-50% of 2019's levels.

Flight traffic comparison - courtesy of Flightrader24

This does not mean we will not travel anymore. It's the same as zoom or webex. We will save up for the best. We will still travel for leisure for sure. That's the first thing Singaporeans did! We are all not in Singapore now having not being able to travel for the last two years. Business travel should revert to some kind of new normal. For some, it could one less trip per year i.e. dropping for 4 to 3. For frequent flyers, it could be 10 to 8. But I believe, over time, we will surpass the previous peak. It is just whether it's 2025 or 2030. 

It may be just numbers (of years) to most of us, but to the airline industry, it's big difference. Our beloved carrier SQ or Singapore Airlines (SIA), continues to burn around S$300m every quarter and if it is going to drag on, they will need money again (it raised S$8 billion last year). Similarly, aviation related plays will continue to be affected. It is amazing how SIA is now S$5 after a massive 50% dilution. At one point it was even close to S$6 which was just a tad away from the share price (S$6.4) before the dilution! How can the stock be diluted half revert to its old price in a matter of months, when the pandemic that caused the whole situation is still with us? Sometimes the market just doesn't make sense.

SQ continues to burn money

 

As such, my belief is that SQ is overvalued now, even if we actually start to recover now from COVID-19, we may not have enough margin of safety for this name. But for other SG stocks, there could be. One name that comes to mind is Jardine Cycle and Carriage, which I have also discussed previously. It has been badly hit by the pandemic and has not rebounded. Partially because it is operating in Indonesia, an emerging country will limited bargaining power for vaccines, medicines and with its domestic consumption still weak, with no recovery in sight.

Similarly, there are many recovery plays that could be interesting: restaurants, cinemas, domestic tourism names in other countries (not so much Singapore) and we should think hard to find these names. On the flipside of the coin, we should be worried about pandemic positive stocks, like zoom and other SAAS names, that had done really well. Some of them have already collapsed, but we may not see it bottoming yet because valuations are still sky high. Just look at Peleton (below), the Netflix + stationary bike manufacturer.

Peleton's share price

At the height of the pandemic, everyone wanted a Peleton bike. The market cap was a crazy US$50 billion. It has fallen 80% but still it's US$12 billion market cap, which is bigger than SQ! This is a company with no earnings, no track record, no cashflow. Just the idea that you can watch motivation exercise videos and cycle to lose weight, which was the best thing ever when everyone was stuck at home. But what happens when we can go out again?

We live in the most unusual times. The GFC created the new paradigm shift to zero interest rates which caused asset prices to inflate through the roof. Some of this huge monetary expansion finds its way to fund startups and created giants (Gojek, Tiktok etc) in the span of a few years. Then the pandemic hit and we saw how it accelerated the growth of some of these co.s but decimated segments of the old economy.

In the midst of all this, we now have real world inflation, a possible bubble of everything and potential recovery in some covid-hit names. But we have to exercise caution because all this is not going to end well. We can only diversify (not so much into cash but different holdings, perhaps even crypto - topic for another day) and hope for the best!

Happy 2022, huat ah!

SIA at $10...Dream Long Long...

Here's two interesting charts on Singapore Airlines (SIA) that I found doing simple desktop research in late June. It shows the destructive nature of dilution including rights issue and other forms of equity capital raising. These charts illustrate how dilution works negatively for investors and they are great reminders that we have to invest in businesses with strong franchises which require little need for additional capital constantly.

The first chart below is a snapshot from Google showing SIA's share price since 2008 or so. This chart adjusts for the recent rights issue that SIA or SQ (its flight code) did in order to survive. The share count has since more than doubled and as such Google adjusted its share price accordingly. Historical prices now showed that SQ did not trade above $10 for the past 10 years based on the new share count (which is more than doubled before its rights issue).

SQ's price chart from Google

This is the correct representation. Kudos to Google. As old timers in the Singapore stock market would recall, SQ traded above $10 for most of its life as a listed stock. But it will almost never go back there because of the massive dilution/rights issue. 

The new $10 is $5. To reiterate what I wrote previously (in the post "What To Do with SQ's Rights Issue", the range of intrinsic value (IV) for SQ is probably in the vicinity of $3.3 to $5. Simplistically, I did a back of the envelope calculation which put the median of $4.2 as the new IV. As mentioned, if it falls close to $3, then we have a good margin of safety and SQ could be a profitable trade (but hey, we are value investors, not traders right?).

This second chart below shows SQ's share price but it's from Yahoo! Obviously Yahoo's A.I. or whoever is doing the charts hasn't gotten things right. We see SQ's share price showing some old prices, like SQ was trading at $16 in 2010 (which is shown as $8 in the Google price chart above). The Yahoo! price chart goes way back, so we see what the old timers see, SQ trading above $10 for most of its trading history. That's a mirage. A dream long gone. We see how the price then fall off the cliff from $8 to $3.75 today. Which is true, but with the adjustment not factored in, the whole picture doesn't gel.

Maybe that's why Yahoo! is no more and Google rocks!

SQ's wrong price chart from Yahoo!

When a dilution occurs, the share price has to work doubly hard to get back to where it was. Some companies like to do small rights issues in the name of M&A or other capital needs for growth, causing a 20-30% dilution. If we get lucky, or if the company's management is really good, this dilution is justified and the share price can compound growth and generate good returns to come back. 

But more often than not, this doesn't happen and investors get screwed.

In cases of massive dilution such as those we saw this year in Singapore: Singapore Airlines and Sembcorp Marine, investors are forced to cough out a lot more money and those who do not will never see their capital. Well, for those who do cough up, it's still tough. The $3 rights have 75c of profit given that SQ share price is now $3.75, but what about those lots invested previously at $6? It's just throwing money to stay in the game. The verdict is not out. We may see second waves and more rights issues.

So that's just investing. Buyers beware. We have dream long long to see SQ at $10 again. (Translation from Singlish to English: stop dreaming SQ will go back to $10 one day.) 

Caveat Emptor. Happy Independence Day! Huat Ah!

What To Do With SQ’s Rights Issue

Last week, our beloved national carrier, Singapore Airlines (SIA), or SQ as it is known by its flight code, announced a bazooka rights issue and mandatory convertible bond issuance to shore up capital in the fight against the coronavirus. The two instruments amount to SGD 8.8 billion dollars but this is just the first wave. The firm alluded to further capital raise of SGD 6.2 billion if needed and subjected to shareholders’ approval within the next 15 months. 

In total, SIA is raising SGD 15 billion dollars which is roughly one year’s worth of revenue (last year’s revenue was SGD 16 billion) but probably 16 to 18 months of its annual cost base. It is also more than 15 years worth of last year’s net profit at c.SGD 900 million. From the balance sheet angle, 15 billion is also bigger than its equity base of SGD 12 billion. The firm cited many use of this massive amount of money but it’s not too important. We all know that without the capital raise, SQ will cease to exist. In accounting language, the firm will no longer be a going concern i.e. SQ will go bankrupt. This is serious! It's Singapore's national carrier, our pride and glory!

How is SQ falling?

Well, we are at war with COVID-19. These are unprecedented times. It was reported that all airlines will fail in three months. With global travel down 25-40%, no airlines can survive without new capital. Three days before the rights issue, SQ announced that it is cutting capacity by 96%. Ninety six percent! Then, we saw this SGD 15 billion dollar bazooka. To put this number in another perspective, this is 125% of its equity base and twice its current market cap. This magnitude is unprecedented and alarmingly dilutive. Essentially, existing shareholders will never see their invested capital if they don’t subscribe. 

SQ was trading at $6.5, the day before the announcement. The market cap was then SGD 7.7 billion dollars. This capital raise (the rights issue and the mandatory convertible bond or MCB) will be SGD 8.8 billion dollars. This means that the dilution will be more than 50% (53.3% to be exact). So whatever intrinsic value SQ should be trading at before, be it $10 or $12, it will only be half of that. We will show the number later in this post but it's hard to imagine SQ going back to $12, ever.

To be helpful with the math, SQ gives us a theoretical ex-rights price (TERP) of $4.4. This means that after the rights issue (just the SGD 5.3bn portion), all things equal, Singapore Airlines' share price should be traded at $4.4 vs the $6.5 the day before, because of the dilution. This does not take into account of the MCB dilution (SGD 3.5bn) and the additional capital raise (SGD 6.2bn) which is subjected to shareholders’ approval. 

That’s a lot of numbers to take in for most people. Some of the details are also not made public and only Singapore Airlines’ shareholders get to see all the numbers. Since I am not a shareholder, I can only analyse with what is available publicly. Here’s two simple conclusions to start with: 

Grounded or Bankrupted? Just kidding...

1. If you are a shareholder, you should subscribe to everything to maximize benefits. But that means coughing out a lot of money to stay in the game. So it's about how much dry powder you have. Do not use too much and don't ever use your savings. Royston Yang from thesmartinvestor reckoned that if someone bought 1,000 shares of SQ at $6.50 (initial capital of $6,500), he has to cough out another $7,450 to subscribe to the rights and the MCB. Do read his well-written post for the details. 

2. If you are not a shareholder, it might worthwhile to monitor SQ closely. It could fall below the theoretical ex-rights price or TERP of $4.4 and that makes it interesting. In an improbable but possible scenario, SQ might fall near or below its rights conversion price of $3. This is an arbitrage opportunity and one can earn a lot of money buying SQ at that ridiculous price (more on this later). Obviously nothing is ever 100%. If SQ falls to $3, it means the market thinks this capital raise is not enough or COVID-19 has won the war or something really apocalyptic. We have to then make a bet that the market is wrong. Remember it is never easy.

But first things first.

Let's try to come up with an intrinsic value for SQ. With that in hand, we can then verify that $3 is ridiculously cheap and justify buying SQ with a good margin of safety. I must say this is just a back-of-the-envelope kind of analysis. I have never been interested in airlines because its business model simply makes it difficult to generate cashflows and compound earnings. But if the share price do fall a lot from here (i.e. fall to $3), it makes an interesting arbitrage opportunity.

Singapore Airlines has never lost money since its listing and its net income hit SGD 1.3 billion in 2018. Its historical high was actually in 2007 and 2008 when net income powered north of SGD 2 billion for two consecutive years. Just looking at its own history, I would say that SQ can do a billion SGD in net income going forward. It has done this before and in the post COVID-19 world, it would be in a better position than most to continue pushing ahead. Singapore Girl Power!

Looking at its EBITDA, which is what most people like to analyze airlines with, we can also see that SQ has achieved SGD 2.5-3 billion dollar of EBITDA annually. Again, this is based on its past track record. I have subscribed to Warren Buffett's view that EBITDA is not worth looking at because it's not cashflow. We are using it here to help us triangulate SQ's intrinsic value. It is also worth reminding everyone here that SQ is not your typical high quality compounding value investor stock. This is just an arbitrage opportunity. If and when this analysis actually plays out, buy SQ close to $3 and sell it at close to $5. That's the thesis.

Okay, so we have the net income at SGD 1bn and EBITDA at SGD 2.5-3bn. Using PE of 12-15x, we have the first estimates of SQ's intrinsic value (IV) at SGD 12bn to 15bn. This is also where its market cap was over the last 5 years. With EBITDA, we would use a ballpark of 5-6x. At 5x, that gives us SGD 12.5-15bn as well! How coincidental!  (Actually, that is usually how valuation triangulation work, the no.s should come close to one another). Since SQ will have enough cash to cover all debt going forward, we can say that its market cap will be equal to its EV. So we have three sets of numbers that point to the same ballmark. I will add a fourth using 6x EV/EBITDA for a blue-sky scenario - SQ beats the coronavirus and rise to glory, take market share, blah blah. You know the story.

1. SQ's market cap at SGD 12-14bn

2. PE based IV at SGD 12-15bn

3. 5x EV/EBITDA based IV at SGD 12.5-15bn

4. 6x EV/EBITDA based IV at SGD 15-18bn (blue sky scenario, SQ did achieve SGD 20bn market cap before) 

Now, with this massive capital raise, SQ's share count will triple from current 1.2bn to c.3.6bn. By dividing the above IVs, we have a range of target prices from $3.3 to $5. I would say that we can take the median of $4.2 as our IV to work with. Coincidentally, this is within 10% of its TERP at $4.4. Recall that the rights issue and MCB allows the shareholder to get more shares at $3 and $1 (technically speaking, shareholders don't actually get it at $1, but simply even more shares), so if the current share price drops close to $3, we will be getting everything with a margin of safety of 40% (4.2/3).

Having said that, SQ is now at $6. It may not fall to $3. In fact, it's probably hard to imagine that happening. But it should fall. So if it falls through its TERP of $4.4, to say $3.9, then we have to start thinking hard. Maybe that's cheap enough. Remember its IV is anywhere from $3.3 to $5. As it gets close to $3, we have to act. In fact, the window will be super short at the bottom. Like just a single day or two. And all bets are off after the rights issue date, since we won't get the rights and the MCB. Hence it's important to have done the work before that.

Hope this helps! Huat Ah!