Maybank hit by RM1.7 billion impairment charge

Maybank has just announced its results for FY2009 ended 30/6/2009. From the Edge wrote:

MALAYAN posted net profit of RM691.87 million for its financial year ended June 30, 2009 from RM2.93 billion a year ago.

Revenue was higher at RM17.58 billion compared with RM16.15 billion. Earnings per share were RM12 sen compared with 53.32 sen.

For the fourth quarter (4Q), its suffered a net loss of RM1.118 billion compared with a net profit of RM792.21 million a year ago. Revenue was RM4.86 billion compared with RM4.49 billion. Loss per share was 17.62 sen compared with EPS of 14.41 sen. It proposed a dividend of eight sen per share.

Maybank said in 4Q, the group had made an impairment charge of RM1.617 billion on goodwill arising from its 97.5%-owned PT Bank Internasional Indonesia Tbk (BII) banking business operations and an additional impairment loss of RM111 million for the investment in MCB Bank.

For more, go here.

I'll look at the technical outlook for Maybank. The stock's uptrend accelerated from S1 to S2 and then to S3. The latter uptrend line was very steep & unsustainable. Share price broke below uptrend line S3 in mid-June and continued to rise upward in a more gradual uptrend S4. From the chart below, we can see that the uptrend line S4 has support at RM6.40 as at August 21. While the chart is outdated by 2 trading days, we can estimate the current support for uptrend line S4 as RM6.45-50 (by extra polarization). If Maybank were to break below this level, Maybank may find support at uptrend line S2 at RM5.80-6.00. As at 9.45 am, Maybank was trading at RM6.39. Should one do a trading SELL at the present price & hope to buy back at RM5.80-6.00? I can't answer that. However, I believe that further impairment charges is likely to be smaller since the economic recovery is picking up steam.


Chart: Maybank's daily chart as at Aug 21, 2009 (Source: Tradesignum)