Yamato: Raised the target price for Wah Huo to 43.7 Hong Kong dollars, raised the EBITDA forecast for this year and next.

Dahua released a research report stating that Huazhu Group's fourth quarter revenue for 2025 exceeded expectations by 2.5%, and EBITDA exceeded expectations by over 10%. However, the bank believes that the EBITDA exceeding expectations is mainly due to a one-time adjustment in its bonus plan. Although the management team is confident that RevPAR will turn positive in 2026, their guidance of flat to slightly increased RevPAR seems slightly below market expectations. The company expects revenue to increase by 2% to 6% in 2026, lower than the bank's and market expectations. The bank believes that the more conservative outlook is mainly due to DH accelerating the sale of its leased hotels, which will put pressure on revenue growth. The bank has raised the company's EBITDA forecast for 2026 to 2027 by 5%, raising the target price from 36.5 Hong Kong dollars to 43.7 Hong Kong dollars, with a rating of "outperform".