Sagar Cement - Cyclical Upturn

Sagar Cement (SC) is likely to be one of the key beneficiaries of the huge development in Andhra and Telengana in the next few years.

Demand Scenario
* Amaravati, is planned over 217 sqkm and would require an investment of 4 lakh crores (ref: www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/telangana-rising-amaravathi/article7271810.ece). Telangana already has over 24,000 cr of infrastructure projects under construction. The govt has cleared lift irrigation projects worth 35,000 cr.
* New high-speed rail line announced between Amaravati and Bengaluru
* New stable governments in TN & Kerala
* Huge investments planned in infrastructure projects like the proposed East Coast Economic Corridor, Dedicated Freight Corridor, Diamond Quadrilateral High Speed Rail and National Waterways.
* Decision to use cement instead of bitumen for a large number of big road projects

 Investment Plan of the Govt related to infrastructure:

Capacity at strategic locations:
3 MTPA of cement and 2.1 MTPA of clinker at Nalgonda, Andhra PradeshAcquired BMM Cements in Sep 2014 with 1 MT cement and 25MW captive power plant at Anantpur, AP at an EV/ton valuation of $87/ton

Sales is well spread geographically, tough majority comes from AP & Telangana.

BMM Cements had 3000 acres of land. In Dec 2015, BMM AP govt approved a 20 year mining lease for 1200 acres containing limestone reserves of 155 million tons. This provides raw material guarantee.
The company has setup rail siding to reduce transport cost. 20% of transport to move to rail thereby increasing operating margins.
The current capacity utilization is at 56% leaving ample scope for increasing utilization. BMM Cements also had a captive power plant of 25MW capacity. Access to captive power will also reduce operating cost. With the completion of the acquisition, SC will consolidate results from Q1FY17.

Financials:
The stock is available at a market cap of around 1200 cr at a PE of 23. The current replacement cost of cement is about 800 cr/mtpa

Risks
* Aggregate demand does not pick up due to delay in infrastructure spending or lack of turnaround in housing sector
* Adverse Govt policy related to price ,specially for low cost housing projects
* Spike in input costs

DISCLOSURE: I hold the stock and other cement stocks.

Stock Update: Sintex

Sintex has made an announcement to the exchanges today that reads as follows:

Sintex Industries Ltd has informed BSE that a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company will be held on May 19, 2016, inter alia, to consider various financing options for a fund raising by the Company through the issuance of foreign currency convertible bonds and/or non - convertible debentures in and/or outside India and to form a committee of directors ("2016 Securities Committee") to implement such fund raising, including deciding the mode of issuance and nature of securities to be issued. It is also intended that subject to appropriate market conditions, the 2016 Securities Committee will open the offering of relevant securities and, subject to appropriate demand, decide the terms of the issuance of the securities (including pricing) on May 19, 2016.

Further, the Trading Window of the Company pursuant to SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015 read with Code of conduct to regulate, monitor and report trading by insiders of the Company will be closed for trading of Company's equity shares from May 16, 2016 to June 01, 2016.

It basically means that they are planning for FCCBs all over again. It seems that they did not learn the lessons of 2008 well enough.

My interview on Sharebazar

The sharebazar app has published my interview yesterday.

Part I - You can read it from the link here.

Part II -  You can read it from the link here.

You can 'continue as guest' on the app / site and read the interview without installing the app (in case you don't want to).