Haw Par Results Due Monday With Stock at a Four-Week Low

Haw Par Corporation goes into its November 10 earnings announcement at SGD 12.60, the weakest level in a month, with borrowing costs still elevated and the short score edging off a recent high.

The positioning story has not materially changed since earlier this week, but the stock has drifted a further 2.6% on Friday, adding a small amount of additional pressure to the setup. Cost to borrow remains at 2.68%, the same level reported earlier in the week and still roughly 46% above where it was a month ago. The directional trend in borrow costs is clear: the rate spent most of September below 1.6% and has steadily ratcheted higher since mid-October. That said, the lending market is not tight. Availability runs at 653%, meaning around six and a half shares remain available to lend for every one already borrowed, and that figure is well above the 52-week floor of 308%. Short interest accounts for roughly 13% of shares in the lending pool, far below the annual peak of 24.5%. The short score has ticked down slightly to 35.5, off the 36.0 level seen late last month. This is a name where incrementally rising borrow costs are worth noting, but the overall setup remains one of modest short-side curiosity rather than any kind of crowded trade.

The ownership structure is a stabilising force. Wee Investments holds 28.4% of shares and has not moved. UOB Asset Management holds a further 9.8%. First Eagle Investment Management, with an 8.6% stake as of August, is the most active of the large holders in recent history, having trimmed its position in January. Those three institutions alone account for nearly half the share count, which helps explain why the lending pool is so well supplied and why significant price dislocations tend to be short-lived. Norges Bank Investment Management and BlackRock both added shares in the most recent reported period, though the absolute sizes of those additions are small.

Valuation is undemanding. The price-to-book ratio is 0.52, and the P/E runs at 11.7x on trailing figures, both of which have drifted fractionally lower over the past month as the stock price has softened. The EV/EBITDA of 9.3x is similarly modest. The dividend score ranks in the 94th percentile of the ORTEX universe, reflecting the company's history of consistent payouts, though the most recent dividend data in the system dates from early 2022 and the picture there is stale. The single analyst rating on record is a hold with a SGD 14.60 target, last updated in September, implying around 16% nominal upside to the current price, but that figure is too dated to treat as an active Street view.

Earnings history here offers a consistent pattern. Each of the last four reported events produced a negative one-day price reaction, ranging from a small 0.1% dip to a 1.3% fall, with five-day moves running between minus 1.3% and minus 4.9%. None of those moves was dramatic, but the direction has been uniformly negative in the near term following results. Monday's announcement is the event to watch, both for the headline numbers and for any commentary on the company's UOB shareholding, which remains the dominant driver of investment income.