Equity Advisory
Saturday 25 December 2010
Balaji Amines: An Update
Balaji's core business is doing well. Realizations have improved and the new product Morpholine is likely to enjoy better margins as it may attract anti-dumping duty in India.
This stock is a good candidate for attractive returns for the medium term (2-3 years) with a tentative price target of 70-80 by Mar-Apr 2011 and 95-100 by Mar-Apr 2012.
Thursday 23 December 2010
Goodbye to 2010. Getting Ready for 2011
International financial news was dominated by the PIGS (no not the animal variety, but the countries of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain). The domestic economies were on the verge of imploding for these countries. They are still not out of the woods, the problems are now known (atleast I hope so!!) and steps are being taken to bring their economies back on track.
Throughout the year we saw tension between US and China on the currency front. Going by past record, that is one problem that is not going to be sorted out any time soon.
The commodity cycle seems to have reversed in the last 12 months. A lot of commodities including rubber, copper, zinc, steel, gold and silver scaled new highs or are tantalizingly close to their old highs. This may continue and oil may also join the party. The consumption boom in India and China is not going away anytime soon, so commodity prices in my opinion will remain in an upswing in the future.
2010 was an interesting year overall. I am sure 2011 will bring in its own share of ups and downs. It promises to be an interesting year for me as I formally start my portfolio management initiative.
Wishing all a great year ahead :-)
Happy New Year.
Thursday 9 December 2010
Profit from Mr. Market
The initial reaction for most people when they see Mr. Market behaving like this is to take the price offered and run for cover with their hard-earned money. It is understandable as stock prices for some of the "named" companies have fallen by 40-50% in the last few days. Now, as retail investors we need to understand what is happening around us and why we have invested in the first place. If our time horizon is for the long term (I don't know why it should be otherwise for investing in equities), then these mood swings of Mr.Market is a fantastic opportunity to pick up good, solid businesses in the mid cap and small cap space. Question is can they go lower? Sure they can. But neither you nor I have the faintest idea what will happen tomorrow. So, instead of wasting precious time and effort in trying to predict tomorrow, it is better to be focused on the stock price. If you think you are seeing value in a business, then go ahead and start buying. And follow my golden rule. NEVER BUY OR SELL IN ONE GO. Always stagger your buying or selling.
Happy Investing.
Friday 3 December 2010
Sintex - Good Long Term Pick
Some points for Sintex:-
* Promoter Holding has increased in the last 2 quarters (from Mar 2010 to Sep 2010) from 30.20% to 33.77%
* Has been paying dividends uninterrupted for 77 years
* Dividend paid is 5.98% of Net profit
* By 2012, India is expected to emerge as the world’s third largest plastic consumer after the US and China, consuming 12.5 mn tonnes annually and attracting US$80 bn fresh investments
Strategic developments, 2009-10
* Invested 137.89 crores in its standalone operations to enhance production and operational efficiency
* Established a new plant in Nalagarh while Nagpur and Namakal plants are under construction
* Nief Plastics acquired two companies named SICMO and SIMOP, increasing the European customer base; these companies are specialised in making and testing metallic moulds for plastic injection and light metal alloys
* Incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary, Sintex Infra Projects Ltd to capitalise on the growing domestic infrastructural developments
* Acquired Esveegee Steel (Gujarat) Pvt. Ltd (100% equity stake) and renamed it Sintex Oil and Gas Pvt.
Building Materials Division:-
* 65% of sales
* Monolithic Concrete Housing Solutions, Prefabricated Structures, Liquid Management Solutions and Waste Management Systems
* Pioneered the manufacture of a range of panels used as roofing and wall materials. Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) 2007 is expected to drive energy-efficiency discipline in future, increasing sandwich-panel demand.
Core custom moulded products:-
* During 2009-10, Sintex initiated a project with Rafael, an Israel-based Company, supplying carrier cases for missile components
Areas of Future Growth:-
* Monolith construction, prefab construction
* The Company anticipates huge opportunities in the feeder pillar box segment owing to the growing popularity of underground cabling.
* Increasing focus on FRP transformer fencing, which is expected to generate enormous returns and volumes (received approvals in Gujarat and is likely to enter Uttar Pradesh)
On a consolidated basis, EPS for FY11 is expected to be around Rs. 30 (Rs 15 on the new FV of Rs 1) with a target of Rs 250-300 in the next six months. I am expecting the company to grow at an average of 20% over the next 3-4 years. With its existing consolidated PE at around 16, I do not expect any major re-rating to happen, so the growth in the stock price will come from the earnings growth.
Saturday 27 November 2010
LIC Housing Finance-Scam and Life thereafter
So, what really has happened here? A couple of people have allegedly taken bribes and given out loans to companies. LICHF's share in this is approximately 300 crores. For a company with assets of 38,000 crores and a net profit of 662 crores (FY10), the amount is not back breaking. Also, let us not jump to the conclusion that all of the 300 crores would end up as NPA. The company is operationally sound and is unlikely to go out of business. After six months, people will forget about this scam (the sad truth is that in this country nobody gets punished for white collar crimes!!!) and LICHF will continue to do well.
The stock has come down from 1300 to around 930 in a span of 3 days. So, what should you (or I for that matter) do? Well, I would think that this might be a good long term opportunity to BUY!!
The situation reminds me of the American Express situation when Buffet bought into it. So, if you have the courage of conviction and your wallet supports you, it might not be a bad idea to be a contrarion and buy LICHF now.
Thursday 25 November 2010
Indian Markets - Crystal ball gazing: Update
Here is what I had written back then:-
- Sensex/Nifty will make a dash for the all-time high sometime soon (maybe as early as October end)
- Either breach it or turn back just short of it.
- A bout of profit booking follows. Indices go down 10%-15% (back to around 18K-18.5K)
- Main indices remain sideways for the next couple of quarters.
- Mid caps move up from now as the last few weeks the valuation gap has widened.
- Sometime after 2-3 quarters, the next up move starts for the main indices. By that time, PE is down to about 22 (which is still high but certainly not hitting the roof).
LEEL-Notes from AR 2010
Acquired “Janka” - Czech based manufactures of Air Handling Units in 2009. Price paid was Euros 4.5 million (Rs 33.17 cr) for a 100% stake. This was paid from internal accruals.
Margins have improved in 2010 and is expected to be around this level
The 2008 acquisition (Lloyds Coil Europe) has turned around and reported profits of 1.04 cr as opposed to a loss of 16.4 cr in the previous year.
A new manufacturing facility has been setup at Pantnagar, Uttarakhand with backward integration of major components like coils required in the manufacturing of ACs.
Executive management salary is not exhorbitant. Mr. B.R. Punj gets 28.8 lakhs and Mr. A.K.Roy gets 41.4 lakhs as total compensation.
Last equity dilution took place in 2005-06 due to conversion of preference shares and issuance of GDR.
Rs 50 cr has been put as corporate guarantee given against loan taken by related parties.
- Promoters have bought 4.68% from the market in November.
Price Realization for manufactured Items
| 2010 | | 2009 | | Growth% | ||
| Nos | Price(in lacs) | Price/unit | Nos | Price(in lacs) | Price/unit | |
Condenser Coils | 703347 | 4824.03 | 685.87 | 509857 | 2466.77 | 483.82 | 41.76% |
Evaporator Coil | 438299 | 2329.61 | 531.51 | 283707 | 1457.65 | 513.79 | 3.45% |
Air Conditioners | 308863 | 22076.08 | 7147.53 | 271616 | 21500.66 | 7915.83 | -9.71% |
Sheet Metal | 63406 | 34877.56 | 55006.72 | 74110 | 30382.59 | 40996.61 | 34.17% |