KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 28): RHB Investment Bank Bhd raised its Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) share target price (TP) to RM9.25 from RM9 in line with higher earnings estimates after MAHB's latest reported core net profit beat expectations.

In a note today, RHB analyst Alan Lim said RHB maintained its "buy" call on MAHB shares.

"The higher TP is in line with higher earnings estimates which resulted in better cash flow forecasts," Lim said.

RHB increased its MAHB earnings estimates by 5% to 14% for financial year ending Dec 31, 2019 (FY19) to FY21. "We assumed higher non-aeronautical revenues for the operations in Turkey," Lim said.

At Bursa Malaysia today, MAHB's share price fell one sen or 0.12% to RM8.21 at 10:11am.

Yesterday, MAHB said in a Bursa filing that net profit rose to RM197.87 million in the third quarter of FY19 (3QFY19) from RM168.49 million a year earlier. For the cumulative nine-month period of FY19 (9MFY19), net profit, however, fell to RM507.53 million from RM699.21 million a year earlier.

Today, Lim said MAHB's 9MFY19 core net profit beat expectations as the operations in Turkey turned profitable earlier than expected.

"MAHB's 9MFY19 core net profit of RM507.5 million reached 96% and 89% of our and consensus earnings estimates. The positive deviation was caused by a stellar performance from Turkey, which registered its first positive profit before tax of RM28.1 million in 3QFY19. This is a significant improvement when compared to a loss before tax (LBT) of RM16.4 million in 2QFY19 and an LBT of RM38.4 million in 2QFY18," he said.