Aeon profit dives 46 per cent in first quarter amid NPL worries

Aeon Thana Sinsap (AEONTS) reported a 46-per-cent plunge in net profit for the first quarter ended May 31 despite revenue increasing by 3 per cent.
The company had a net profit of Bt530 million on revenue of Bt5.65 billion.
Aeon was the first non-bank organisation to announce its financial results after being impacted by the Covid-19 crisis.
The decrease in profit was attributed to higher provision for bad debt and doubtful account, which had increased by 72 per cent to Bt2.39 billion.
Korakot Sawetkruttamat, Kasikorn Securities’ assistant director, said that the performance of Krungthai Card (KTC) would be like AEONT’s, since the two companies were similar to each other.
In the second half of this year, Korakot predicted that the stocks of those credit companies would not recover to their previous level, which will affect profits, especially KTC and Srisawad Corporation that previously charged high interest.
“The performance of credit company stocks will tend to be weak in the next one to three years” he added. “The high coverage ratio of AEONTS reflected that the corporation has prepared itself to deal with the non-performing loan [NPL], which will be heightened in the future. AEONTS’ NPL would rise from the present 3.7 per cent to at most 10 per cent in the worst case”.
However, the stock price of AEONTS on Wednesday (July 8) could return to positive zone, due to its NPL information that would increase investor confidence.