Growth Paused, Everything Else Improved
Six months ago, the last post on this company described a lender in the middle of a visible pivot - shrinking its motorcycle-and-car consumer financing book while pouring capital into equipment and machinery finance lease», funded by a rapid build-up of foreign-currency bank debt. This half, the pivot itself is still running - finance lease income is up 64.7% year-over-year while consumer financing income is down 15.7% - but the company that emerges from these numbers looks different in one important way: it stopped growing. Total assets fell 0.7% from December 2015 to June 2016, essentially flat, even as the finance lease book alone grew nearly a fifth.
What happened instead is a capital-allocation story. For the first time in this backlog, operating cash flow turned positive - Rp122,538 million generated from operations, versus a cash outflow of Rp826,211 million in the same half a year earlier. Rather than plow that surplus (plus cash on hand) back into faster book growth, management used it to pay down Rp677,198 million of total fund borrowings - including a meaningful reduction in the foreign-currency loans flagged as a fragility in the last post - repurchase far more of its own stock than it issued through employee options, and pay a Rp106,769 million cash dividend, per the filed cash flow statement - actually down from Rp297,587 million in the same half a year earlier, even as net income grew 14.4%. Every one of those choices is individually defensible - deleveraging, a real EPS-accretive buyback, a smaller but still real shareholder distribution - but the debt paydown and buyback together still describe a company that chose to harvest cash this half rather than keep compounding its balance sheet, right as the segment it's betting the future on (finance lease) is showing its best growth yet.
The Prescription
Keep leaning on the bond and medium-term-note market instead of foreign bank syndicates - this is genuinely working. Securities issued (bonds and MTNs) grew 26.3% to Rp2,123,504 million while total fund borrowings fell 11.8% to Rp4,973,073 million, and within that, the US-dollar-denominated portion of borrowings dropped from Rp4,974,434 million to Rp3,608,915 million while Rupiah-denominated borrowings nearly doubled. Total interest-bearing debt (fund borrowings plus securities issued) against equity works out to roughly 1.73x this half - the same gross measure used to flag a jump to ~1.9x a year earlier - continuing exactly the deleveraging path the last post argued for, without giving up the fully-hedged foreign borrowing that remains outstanding.
What it should stop doing: treating a cash-flow-positive half as a signal to slow down rather than to fund the pivot faster. Finance lease is now unambiguously the better book - it's carrying more than half of segment assets (53.9%, up from 41.4% a year ago) and growing revenue more than four times faster than consumer financing is shrinking - yet the company chose to return Rp106,769 million in dividends and Rp122,966 million in buybacks, and pay down Rp677,198 million of borrowings, rather than accelerate originations in the segment it has spent two years building. A company that just proved it can throw off real cash from operations for the first time shouldn't spend its first surplus mostly on financial engineering instead of the growth engine it's already identified.
Key Financial Metrics
Six months ended June 30, 2016 vs. six months ended June 30, 2015
FX: Rp13,180 = USD 1 (June 30, 2016, per the company's own financial statements). Both periods are converted at this same rate for comparability; it is not a historical rate for the 2015 column.
| Metric | H1 2016 (IDR) | H1 2016 (USD) | H1 2015 (IDR) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Income ("Net Revenue" equivalent) | Rp1,559,421M | ~$118.3M | Rp1,352,169M | ✅ +15.3% |
| Profit Before Income Tax ("Operating Income" equivalent) | Rp462,020M | ~$35.1M | Rp370,502M | ✅ +24.7% |
| Net Income | Rp340,439M | ~$25.8M | Rp297,506M | ✅ +14.4% |
| Total Cash and Cash Equivalents | Rp268,621M | ~$20.4M | Rp383,349M | ⚠️ -29.9% |
Profit before tax remains the closest real operating-income equivalent. The operating cash flow swing is the headline number in this table - it went from a Rp826,211M outflow to a Rp122,538M inflow, the first positive half in this backlog, even as total cash on hand fell because the company spent that surplus (plus existing cash) on debt repayment, buybacks, and dividends rather than holding it (see Beyond the Usual and the balance sheet below).
| Balance sheet metric | Jun 2016 (IDR) | Jun 2016 (USD) | Dec 2015 (IDR) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Assets | Rp11,683,433M | ~$886.5M | Rp11,770,414M | ⚠️ -0.7% |
| Net Investments in Finance Lease | Rp6,222,915M | ~$472.1M | Rp5,209,847M | ✅ +19.4% |
| Consumer Financing Receivables (net) | Rp4,380,412M | ~$332.4M | Rp4,688,156M | ⚠️ -6.6% |
| Total Liabilities | Rp7,570,638M | ~$574.4M | Rp7,751,311M | ✅ -2.3% |
| Fund Borrowings | Rp4,973,073M | ~$377.3M | Rp5,636,699M | ✅ -11.8% |
| Securities Issued (bonds + MTNs) | Rp2,123,504M | ~$161.1M | Rp1,681,116M | ⚠️ +26.3% |
| Total Equity | Rp4,112,795M | ~$312.1M | Rp4,019,103M | ✅ +2.3% |
Total assets barely moving while the two core receivables lines (finance lease + consumer financing combined) actually grew 7.1% is only possible because cash fell so sharply - from Rp777,233M to Rp268,621M, a 65.4% drop over six months, funding the dividend, buyback, and net debt paydown described above. A six-month period isn't directly comparable to a full fiscal year, and this business doesn't carry meaningful calendar-driven seasonality the way a retailer or bank tied to a harvest cycle would - vehicle and equipment financing demand tracks Indonesia's broader economic cycle more than any pattern within the year.
Key Operational Metrics
- Net investment mix: finance lease is now 58.7% of the combined finance lease + consumer financing net book, up from 52.6% at year-end 2015 - continuing, but not accelerating, the shift the last post first identified.
- Net Debt to Equity Ratio»: 1.7x (the company's own disclosed figure, net of cash), down from 1.8x at year-end 2015. On the same gross basis (interest-bearing debt against equity, without netting cash) used in the last post, the ratio is roughly 1.73x this half, down from ~1.9x a year earlier - the clearest number in this filing showing the deleveraging path is real, not a one-quarter blip.
- Branch network: 206 branches and 72 kiosks as of June 2016, up from 203 branches and 62 kiosks a year earlier.
- Headcount: 8,231 employees (5,109 permanent, 3,122 non-permanent), up 3.4% from 7,964 a year earlier - a much slower pace than the double-digit headcount growth in the last post, consistent with a company that isn't scaling its book as fast this half.
- Geographic mix: 48.7% of six-month revenue came from Java, with Sumatera (18.8%) and Sulawesi (18.4%) the next-largest contributors, and Kalimantan at 12.9% - a slightly more Java-weighted mix than the 46%/54% split reported last time, though still meaningfully de-concentrated for an Indonesian financial company.
- Receivables overdue more than 90 days (calculated from the filed statement's own overdue-day disclosure, not a company-labeled "NPL ratio"): finance lease 1.10% of gross investment (versus 1.04% at year-end 2015); consumer financing 1.39% of gross receivables (versus 1.36% at year-end 2015). Both ticked up slightly rather than diverging sharply - a different picture from the last post's finding of finance lease credit quality improving while consumer financing's worsened; this half, both segments moved modestly in the same direction.
- Not available this quarter: a reverse-DCF-ready long-term growth guidance figure and a standalone loan-loss coverage ratio - neither is disclosed in the filed financial statement, and no separate earnings presentation, press release, or transcript has been located for this quarter.
Two Segments, One Balance Sheet
Same two segments as last post - finance lease and consumer financing, plus a residual "others" category for unallocated finance income and corporate items.
Finance lease - income of Rp611,716M for the half, up 64.7% year-over-year, now 53.9% of segment assets (Rp6,296,820M) versus 41.4% a year earlier - a clear majority position for the first time in this backlog, up from being roughly tied with consumer financing 12 months ago. Receivables overdue more than 90 days ticked up modestly to 1.10% (from 1.04% at year-end 2015), still low in absolute terms.
Consumer financing - income of Rp548,388M, down 15.7% year-over-year, now 37.7% of segment assets (Rp4,402,593M), down from 46.4% a year earlier. Credit quality was essentially flat: receivables overdue more than 90 days moved from 1.36% to 1.39%.
Comparing the two: finance lease keeps taking share of the balance sheet and is growing revenue more than four times faster than consumer financing is shrinking - the pivot from the last post is continuing, even if the pace of the mix shift has slowed from the roughly 1.5 points a month seen through September 2015 to about 1 point a month this half. What has changed more than the pace is the credit story: the sharp segment-level divergence that made the last post's finding so clean (finance lease improving while consumer financing worsened) has narrowed to something closer to "both roughly stable" this half. The bigger story this quarter isn't which segment is safer - it's that neither segment's balance sheet grew much at all, because the company routed its cash surplus elsewhere (see Beyond the Usual).
Beyond the Usual
A tax authority dispute over fiscal year 2011 that isn't fully resolved
On 18 March 2016, the company received a Tax Underpayment Assessment Letter covering corporate income tax, value-added tax, and other taxes for fiscal year 2011, totaling Rp12,261M, Rp27,936M, and Rp123M respectively, plus a Rp3,775M Tax Collection Letter. The company paid the full Rp44,095M underpayment on 15 April 2016, but it disagreed with Rp31,058M of the assessment - roughly 9% of this half's net income - and filed a formal objection with the tax office on 15 June 2016, six weeks before this filing. The outcome of that objection isn't yet known as of this filing, so the disputed portion remains a live, unresolved item rather than a closed one.
The buyback finally outweighed the dilution
For the first time in this backlog, the company repurchased more of its own shares than it issued through employee stock options. During the half, the Management & Employee Stock Option Program (MESOP)» added 30,752,000 new shares as employees exercised their final tranche of options - exhausting the program's remaining share reserve entirely - while the company bought back 48,700,400 shares for Rp122,966M, roughly 1.6 times as many shares as were issued. That's a reversal of the pattern flagged in the last post, where the buyback was a small fraction of MESOP-driven dilution; this half, for the first time, the buyback structurally offset it.
A heavy-equipment distributor became a lender to its own financing partner
On 2 May 2016, PT United Tractors Tbk - a heavy-equipment distributor, not a bank - extended a Rp300,000M working capital loan to the company, explicitly earmarked for financing heavy equipment purchases made by the company's own customers. It's an unusual lending relationship: the equipment seller is financing the company that finances the seller's own buyers, a closed loop that ties the finance lease pivot directly to one of the industrial suppliers whose machinery it's underwriting.
Off-balance-sheet joint financing shrank instead of growing
The combined disclosed commitment under the company's channeling and joint financing arrangements with Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Bank Mandiri, Bank Maybank Indonesia, and Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional fell from Rp2,153,009M to Rp1,798,665M over the half - a reversal of the growth in these off-balance-sheet arrangements» noted in the last post, consistent with a company that had less need for outside funding partners this half given its own cash surplus.
The segment note and the income statement don't split revenue the same way
The company's internal segment report allocates Rp779,694M of income to finance lease and Rp761,370M to consumer financing for the half - figures that read as nearly tied - while the income statement itself shows finance lease income of Rp611,716M against consumer financing income of Rp548,388M, a wider and more accurate picture of which product is actually driving growth. The gap exists because the segment note re-attributes some income booked under "Finance" and "Others" in the income statement to whichever segment it actually relates to, while genuinely unallocated interest expense and staff costs stay parked entirely in an "Others" column that isn't a real business segment. A reader relying only on the segment table's income split, rather than the income statement's own product-level lines, would understate how much finance lease has actually pulled ahead.
Target Valuation Range
Market cap ~Rp4,190,848M (~$318.0M) at ~6.2x annualized P/E and ~1.0x P/B - cheaper than the last post's read despite a stronger balance sheet, for a lender that just delevered and turned cash-flow positive - undervalued, unless the market is pricing in the growth stall as more than a one-off.
Shares closed at approximately Rp2,710 on June 30, 2016 (converted from a market-data pull that reflects the company's later 10-for-1 stock split in June 2017, since price data fetched today for this period is retroactively split-adjusted). Against this half's own numbers, using 1,546,438,362 shares outstanding net of treasury stock:
| Market cap buildup | Q2 2016 |
|---|---|
| Share price (period-end) | Rp2,710 |
| Shares outstanding | 1,546,438,362 |
| Market capitalization | Rp4,190,848M (~$318.0M) |
| Book value (total equity) | Rp4,112,795M |
| Peer-multiple sanity check | Q3 2015 | Q2 2016 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| P/E | ~7.7x | ~6.2x | down |
| P/B | ~1.2x | ~1.0x | down |
Both multiples sit below the ~7.7x P/E and ~1.2x P/B calculated for the nine months ended September 2015, even though leverage has fallen and operating cash flow turned positive in the interim - the kind of gap that shows up either when a market is skeptical the growth pause is temporary, or when a stock simply hasn't re-rated to reflect balance-sheet improvements that aren't visible in a headline revenue or asset-growth number. A full DCF still isn't included here - this remains early in the backlog, and a multi-year model needs more quarterly history than two data points provide. The peer-multiple read above remains the honest valuation lens for now.
Shares moved from a low of roughly Rp2,100 (mid-to-late 2014) to a high of roughly Rp3,000 (September 2015) over the trailing two years, before giving back some of that gain to close at Rp2,710 by this filing - a moderate pullback from the September 2015 high already described in the last post, not a new dramatic move worth its own section.
PT BFI Finance Indonesia Tbk's unaudited financial statements as of and for the six-month period ended 30 June 2016 (with comparative figures for 30 June 2015 and audited balances as of 31 December 2015), filed 29 July 2016.