^ Original-Research: MLP SE - from NuWays AG

08.10.2024 / 09:01 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Research, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this research. The result of this research does not constitute investment advice or an invitation to conclude certain stock exchange transactions.

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Classification of NuWays AG to MLP SE

Company Name: MLP SE ISIN: DE0006569908

Reason for the research: Update Recommendation: Buy from: 08.10.2024 Target price: EUR 12.00 Target price on sight of: 12 months Last rating change: Analyst: Henry Wendisch

Guidance hike thanks to FERI's fund solutions; chg. est & PT

Last week, MLP increased its FY'24 EBIT guidance thanks to a favourable development of FERI's institutional fund solutions, leading to highly profitable performance fees in Q3. In detail:

MLP disclosed EUR 17m of performance fees collected in the third quarter, which compares extremely well to last year's Q3 (EUR 0.1m) as well as to Q1'24 (EUR 3.8m) and Q2 (EUR 5.4m) and which is the second largest quarterly collection over the last 4 years (largest: EUR 27m in Q4'21).

While the exact source of performance fees is undisclosed, we expect it to have mostly stemmed from FERI's non-public institutional fund solutions (Alternative and 'other' Assets, c. 93% of FERI's AuM, see p.2 for details) as the observable public funds (Optoflex and Equity Flex fund families) have not performed to the extent to explain the large amount of EUR 17m. As it is impossbile to observe or anticipate the fund performance of the non-public funds from the outside, the strong collection of performance fees hit us with a positive surprise.

Consequently, MLP raised its FY'24e EBIT guidance by EUR 10m from EUR 75-85m to EUR 85-95m, now in line with our old estimate of EUR 90m. Assuming a 60-75% incremental EBIT margin from performance fees (eNuW), this implies EUR 10-13m of incremental Q3 EBIT and fully explains the EUR 10m guidance increase.

As we have modeled our EUR 90m EBIT target under the assumption of only EUR 1m performance fees in Q3 (we have assumed no performance fees from non-public funds due to their unpredictability) we add an incremental EUR 10m EBIT to our previous Q3 EBIT estimate, but also finetune our Q4 estimate by adding EUR 5m to our personnel expense estimate. As a result, our new FY'24e EBIT estimate arrives at the top-end of the new guidance at EUR 95m (old: EUR 90m), which implies a strong EBIT expansion by 34% yoy.

In sum, the guidance hike completely underpins our positive view on the stock. Additional to performance fees, the recovery of the EBITnegative real estate business as well as the ongoing strong net interest income from banking, should lead to improving profitability into this and next year. This directly contradicts MLP's valuation, which should rerate once the hike in profitability becomes ever more visible. Therefore, we reiterate our BUY recommendation, confirm MLP's position in our NuWays' AlphaList and increase our PT to EUR 12.00 (old: EUR 11.50), based on FCFY'24e and SOTP.

You can download the research here: http://www.more-ir.de/d/30999.pdf For additional information visit our website: www.nuways-ag.com/research

Contact for questions: NuWays AG - Equity Research Web: www.nuways-ag.com Email: research@nuways-ag.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nuwaysag Adresse: Mittelweg 16-17, 20148 Hamburg, Germany ++++++++++ Diese Meldung ist keine Anlageberatung oder Aufforderung zum Abschluss bestimmter Börsengeschäfte. Offenlegung möglicher Interessenskonflikte nach § 85 WpHG beim oben analysierten Unternehmen befinden sich in der vollständigen Analyse. ++++++++++

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2003689 08.10.2024 CET/CEST

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Quelle: dpa-Afx