Positive trend from trade war should be coming through PIE Industrial and VS Industry

The early impact of trade war can be seen now. While companies are scrambling to reorganize their supply chain, within the short run we see deterioration of international trade. Yesterday, Malaysia announced a 4.4% GDP growth - not bad given the circumstances. Export sector has seen a drop expectedly. As discussed in my previous article, we will see some companies benefiting from the trade war while others may suffer. I foresee those that are benefiting in the long run would be

• PIE Industrial
• VS Industry
• Globetronics
• Pentamaster has shown a surprisingly positive results

While those whom will be immediately impacted are:

• Inari Amertron
• KESM
• Unisem
• Carsem (MPI)
• Aemulus

The announcement provided by Statistics Department which is not a surprise,

Malaysia’s exports of goods in the third quarter of 2019 recorded a decrease of 1.9 per cent to RM247.0 billion as compared to RM251.8 billion registered in the same period last year. The main products which attributed to the decrease were electrical & electronic products and crude petroleum that shrank by 4.9 per cent and 43.9 per cent respectively.

For PIE, it announced a better 3rd quarter results yesterday against previous quarter of 2Q19 as well as last year's quarter of 3Q18. While its profitability improved (due to foreign exchange gain, lower administrative costs, reversal of impaired collection), its revenue dropped a little.

It is a decent result given the circumstances. It is expected as US imposed additional tariff starting on 1 September 2019 causing companies to scramble to readjust. We seen the results impacting some companies but still VS and PIE are not affected as much. In the long run they will gain.

What is more important as has been provided by PIE is a guidance on what it expects for 2019 and beyond as below. From what we read, PIE may not increase its revenue substantially, but potentially the profit margin will increase. It is more selective in its business orders - something which one can do when times are better. It is better times potentially for Malaysian EMS companies. We see the same through VS Industry.

Current Year Prospect - PIE Industrial (3Q19)

The major source of revenue and profit of the Group is from its manufacturing segment (99%). For EMS activities (80%), orders are expected to increase in the long run from existing customers and potential new customers through its fully built-up vertical integrated manufacturing facilities which have been improved in operation for the past 5 years. Due to the beneficial effect of USA-China trade war, this division is expected to receive more orders from new overseas customers in 2019. This division will cancel certain new low-margin, high-volume products since beginning of 2019 and focus on profitable projects from potential new customers. The serious shortage of certain electronics component in 2018 is expected to be smoothen in coming quarters. However, any drastic fluctuation of Ringgit Malaysia against USD will be the main factor affecting its performance in the near future. 

I see better performances for these companies in the EMS sector throughout next few years as the global trend is changing and for the better.

Performance of VS Industry will give us where some of the businesses will be heading

I have in the past mentioned about focus on businesses that has sales to overseas or in short exports. This however does not include stocks dealing in palm oil as it has other challenges themselves. When I mentioned these, I was more of referring to the Guan Chong's of this world, the semiconductor stocks such as Globetronics, MPI, Unisem, Vitrox, Pentamaster, PIE and maybe rubber gloves - although I am seeing some oversupply position among the rubber gloves makers in the short term.

Anyway, as we know - the world is transitioning. We are seeing the clash of two superpowers - US and China. When two superpowers collide, are we the pelanduk (mousedeer) that will die in between (a Malaysian proverb - Dua Gajah bertarung, pelanduk mati in tengah-tengah).

Malaysia, coincidently is not taking sides - particularly in business. We are exporting to both countries. We do business with both countries - business and politically.

In dealing with trade wars, we have to be really in the know what type of companies and business we are dealing with. Semiconductor company - in this particular case - VS Industry - a downstream player - also called a box builder. It is one of the largest South East Asian owned box maker - i.e. the one that assembles, value adds and helps one of its customers, Dyson to manufacture its vacuum cleaners. Dyson for your knowledge does not own a single factory - just like Nike's model - or closer Apple.

In this article, I am not going to mention in detail the business of VS but what it has announced recently and where some of our companies in Malaysia will be heading - not the next few quarters alone but the next few years at least. As a summary, VS Industry has businesses in three countries - Malaysia, China and Indonesia (as below latest results - 4Q19).

Malaysian revenue comprise of 80% of its total revenue. Surprisingly, revenue from Indonesian operations has dropped while unsurprisingly revenue from China dropped even further. As we can see, Malaysia is highly profitable and China is making losses. Indonesia is barely breaking even. China's losses as it has mentioned is because the company seems to be downsizing in that country - not surprising. VS is taking a financial hit in China as it seems that they are focusing harder in Malaysia.

So, what we are seeing is a business where Malaysia is somewhat strong in among our competitor countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and China (which overtook us by far in the last 2 decades). As below is the explanation as provided by the management of VS which I tend to believe and agree. (no point rewriting them as I can make use of the wonders of cut and paste)

As mentioned above, we know already given that if we do some "reading and watching" and if we know the geopolitical and cross border business perspective, it is the start of where we see what we may see more in the near and medium term future.

More and more businesses are looking out of China - still the factory for the world, and Vietnam and Malaysia will get more queries. The above performance, I see as just the beginning - for VS and few more companies in Malaysia. This is the reason why I am betting on PIE Industrial. PIE, to me could be even better as it is largely only Malaysian operation and does not have operations in China - the setback that we see through VS. The weakness for PIE though is that it is smaller than VS and it is Taiwanese controlled.

Given that if I have time, I will share more of my opinion on export businesses in Malaysia and the trade which I have been spending a lot of time and my current dealings in.

I am though a little bit not satisfied that we start to see this trend as above through VS and several more, but I do not think the "G" i.e. "government, side is doing enough. There are opportunities I think with this trend, moving forward. VS, by the way is doing quite well as a company and management given that they are managing the transitioning - it is not easy.

Why PIE Industrial is a stock for the trade war

By now, many would have known what the term trade war is about. It started during the Trump's administration which felt that to reign the growth of China, one of the method is to rebalance the trade deficit faced by US against China. Since the admittance of China into WTO, US has faced trade deficits against China and it felt that the unfair support provided by the Chinese government towards its exporters is the main culprit. Whereas, many has also felt that the reason why US has become so petty is because of the growth of China as a world superpower especially given that China is now quite strong technologically in some areas which is of concern to US.

Of course, the US government felt that the way to control the growth of China is through imposition of tariffs of up to 25% on $200 billion worth of goods from China. Since the late 20th Century, China has been steadily growing as the world's manufacturer, and this trade war is set with the intention to reduce that dependencies on China. Funnily, China which is now the second largest economy globally is already planning for this since the beginning of this 2010 decade. Since Xi Jinping has taken the helm in 2012, he has largely been trying to drive China to be a consumer and technological power.

In any case, Malaysia having been one of the larger semiconductor based products manufacturer would have been affected by this "trade war" disruption as many companies especially whom are dependent on China as a supply based are now reevaluating themselves. To this end, I can say all the semiconductor companies would be affected one way or another. To see this clearly, we have to understand in which value chain would many of these E&E companies would play. The diagram below, would provide a good indicator although there are other ways to slice that presentation.

Many of the products that are exported to US would be at the end of the value chain, i.e. box build and this is where the 25% tariffs is being imposed on. Box build basically means the phones, routers, switches, accessories etc that are assembled and exported. Malaysia is not a big exporter of final value chain products but rather the component exporters - pretty much at the Intel, Broadcom, Osram and Inari level.

At the moment, due to the disruption caused by the tariff, the component sellers are affected as most definitely many buyers are reducing their purchases due to the wait-and-see attitude from the negotiations between the Trump and Xi's trade team.

In any case, I see that the trade war is something which is not only due to Trump but is coming nevertheless. US as a country would not allow China to surpass them as it has been dominant since World War 2 -  i.e the world's superpower without much competition for 75 years.

This phenomenon will see changes in terms of supply chain. I do see some Malaysian companies getting larger orders as they have been building themselves as the system builders (box-build).

One of them is PIE Industrial - a final system exporter. Ironically, the company has not been doing that well for the last few years due to several reasons - such as shortages of supply and lost of customers. This trade war will see difference as in the management discussion (2018 Annual Report) provided below.

I have decided to buy 4500 units of PIE.