Vicinity Centres: Return of shoppers may fail to beat inflation hit - Jefferies

Vicinity Centres

06/05/2022 24:37

** Jefferies hikes price target on mall operator Vicinity
Centres  VCX.AX  to A$1.88 from A$1.85, retains rating of hold
    ** VCX on Thursday said March quarter sales were up 11.2%
from March 2019 on increased traffic at malls, with spending per
visit during the quarter also on the rise
    ** Jefferies, however, remains cautious on "cost of living
pressures and rising rates"
    ** Brokerage says succession of rate hikes, negative wealth
effect from declining house prices and rising living costs due
to high inflation will deter consumers from non-essential
spending
    ** "Expect elevated retail sales for next 6-12 months before
normalising due to spending moving more to offshore travel and
services, higher interest rates and potential house price
declines having a negative wealth effect" - Jefferies
    ** Brokerage hikes FY22 net profit estimate marginally to
A$565.1 mln ($402.13 mln), but cuts FY23 view 1.6% to A$620.2
mln, and by nearly 4% to A$615.2 mln for FY24
    ** Five of 13 analysts rate the stock "buy", six "hold" and
two "sell"; their median PT is A$1.94 – Refinitiv data

($1 = 1.4053 Australian dollars)

 (Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard
Chang)
 ((Sameer.Manekar@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: https://twitter.com/sameer_manekar))