A month and a half after Noah Holdings Limited’s IPO (AMEX:NOAH), analysts have started weighing in on the Chinese wealth management company, and they seem to like what they see – even at what appears to be an extremely high price for shares in a young company.
Here’s the first batch of analyst ratings that started rolling in earlier this month: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) gives NOAH an “overweight” rating, and Roth Capital Partners joins Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) in listing it as a “buy.” Both Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) and Oppenheimer (NYSE:OPY) started the stock at “perform.”
Noah targets wealth management products to high net worth individuals in China, and that’s a decent niche to fill. The ranks of China’s wealthy are swelling as high net worth individuals in the PRC controlled some $5.6 trillion in 2009, according to Reuters. That was good enough to rank them No. 4 in the world in terms of high net worth individuals in 2009.
Currently trading at a P/E ratio of 89, Noah’s shares sound expensive, but the company’s growth just might justify the premium. During the first half of 2010, Noah’s net revenue more than doubled to $13.7 million over the same period in 2009. Even better: Noah’s profits grew fivefold during that time span to $4.04 million.
“As investors, we like to see companies that can grow,” Benjamin Kirby, a Santa Fe, New Mexico-based analyst at Thornburg Investment Management, told Businessweek. Noah definitely meets that qualification, and that’s made me a believer in the stock.
