As of 11:39 AM (Bangkok time) on Monday, the share price of Bumrungrad Hospital Public Company Limited (SET: BH) increased by 4.46% or THB 7.50 to THB 175.50, with a trading value of THB 776.88 million.
According to JPMorgan, BH delivered a stronger-than-anticipated second-quarter performance, reporting net income of THB 1.86 billion. While earnings slipped 4% year-on-year, they advanced 7% sequentially, coming in 7% and 9% higher than JPMorgan and consensus estimates, respectively.
The outperformance was driven largely by a sharp reduction in selling, general and administrative (SG&A) costs and lower net interest expenses, which fell 11% and 18% quarter-on-quarter.
JPMorgan rated the stock ‘Neutral’ with a target price of THB 190 per share, noting that the hospital’s first-half results now stand at 49%/50% of full-year forecasts by the analyst and consensus, respectively, just shy of the usual mid-year run-rate of 50-53%.
Revenue decreased 4% from a year earlier in the second quarter, aligning to the management’s previous guidance and slightly improving from a 5.6% decline in the first quarter. A timing shift in Ramadan accounted for some of the quarterly improvement in revenue growth momentum.
Patient mix data showed Thai patient revenue narrowly dipping 0.2% after a 1.2% gain in Q1, while international patient revenue contracted by 6.6%, marking an improvement over the previous quarter’s 9.7% drop.
Margin resilience was a bright spot, with EBITDA margin reaching 41.6%, well ahead of JPMorgan’s 38.7% estimate and up 83 basis points year-on-year. This margin expansion reversed the trend seen in the first quarter, where margins had contracted by over 300 basis points year-on-year.
The margin improvement was attributed to robust cost control, as SG&A fell 4.5% from a year ago, and the gross profit margin remained stable despite a lower share of higher-yielding international patients.
