The research house opined that the group could also take the opportunity to further clean up its balance sheet by increasing its provisioning coverage. However, more details would only be shared by the management in its fourth quarter of financial year 2012 result announcement due in mid-February 2013. Cheah believed that despite CIMB's management track record, strong banking franchise and good proxy to Asean exposure, its current share price offered limited upside in the near term. "CIMB's share price has underperformed its banking peers last year. "However, we expect its earnings momentum to remain strong in 2013 in anticipation of accelerated disbursement of Economic Transformation Programme-related corporate loans and higher contributions from the investment banking operations," he further explained.