Helbor Jump Leads Bovespa Small Caps After Profit Tops Estimates

Helbor Empreendimentos SA (HBOR3), Brazil’s cheapest homebuilder on a price-to-earnings basis, jumped the most in a month after reporting profit that beat analysts’ estimates.

Shares rose 3.3 percent to 12.50 reais at 2:11 p.m. in Sao Paulo, which would be the biggest advance on a closing basis since Feb. 15. It was the best performer on the BM&FBovespa Small Cap index, which slid 0.6 percent.

Earnings per share more than tripled in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier to 1.044 reais, exceeding the average estimate for 37 centavos among three analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg after the company released results late yesterday.

The results back up Helbor’s strategy to target faster growing areas of the country as economic expansion stays sluggish, Luiz Mauricio Garcia, an analyst at Banco Bradesco SA (BBDC4)’s brokerage unit, wrote in a note to clients dated today.

Brazil’s gross domestic product growth slowed to 0.9 percent last year from 2.7 percent in 2011.

Helbor lost 3.6 percent this year through yesterday while the small cap index declined 2.6 percent during that same period.

To contact the reporter on this story: Denyse Godoy in Sao Paulo at dgodoy2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at papadopoulos@bloomberg.net