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About
VST is involved in the manufacturing and marketing of cigarettes. It is the second largest cigarette-maker in India with 12 brands in its portfolio. The company is an affiliate of British American Tobacco (BAT), UK, which holds a 32.16% stake in the company. Some of the major brands of the company are Charminar, Charminar Special Filter, Charms Mini Kings and Charms Virginia Filter. Its products are targeted at the lower-end of the market and have dominance in the small sized (less than 60mm) micro segment. The company is dependent on ITC for the supply of tobacco. Though the major chunk of revenue comes from sale of cigarettes, it is also in the business of selling unmanufactured and cut tobacco.
In order to establish its presence in unrepresented geographies, the company has last year launched a new brand, ‘XL Filter’ in large parts of Tamil Nadu and the hill states of the North East. In 2005, the company also launched another new brand, ‘Shaan’, which has garnered 4% share in the micro segment.

Financials
The company is a debt free company with almost 200 Crs in cash and investments. The company has been consistently been profitable with net margins increasing from 5-6% to almost 15% now. The Return on capital is consistently above 25%+ and excluding the low yielding investment, the company enjoys very high return on tangible capital. The company has been working with Negative working capital for some time and this seems to be increasing too.

Positives
The company has strong competitive advantage due to the nature of the product for which users have a very high brand preference. Competition is limited to ITC and the unorganized sector at the low end. As a result the company has a strong free cash flow and high return on capital

Risks
Topline growth is low due to high excise and price sensitivity at the low end. Also the company is not clear of how it will use the excess cash and there is always a risk that the company may simply blow away the surplus cash.

Valuation
At 58Cr net profit and 200Cr cash on the books, the company can be conservatively valued at 1100-1200 Cr (at 15 times PE of Free cash flow) which is at 50% discount to the current market cap. The company can grow at a 4-5% topline via new product introductions and price increases. The net profit has grown at a much higher rate of almost 20% for the last 10 years and a 6-7% growth in the future should look achievable. This level of growth and the high ROC can easily justify a PE of 15.
In addition, the company has a dividend of almost 20 Rs / share which is almost a 50% payout ratio .

Relative valuation
ITC is the largest player, but it has several businesses and hence it is diffcult to compare the financials. However a segment based analysis shows that ITC has around 17% post tax margins and around 110% return on capital. In comparison VST has a 15% net margin and more than 100% return on capital. ITC is curently commanding a PE of 20.

Godfrey philips is the second largest cigarette manufacturer. It had a net profit of around 87 Crs and has an adjusted cash and equivalents of approximately 200 crs (net of debt). The company sells at a PE of around 15-16 (net of cash). In comparison VST sells at an adjusted PE of around 7 and this could mainly be due to the slightly lower growth rates than ITC and Godfrey philips.

Conclusion
The company is a slow grower and the unit volume are more or less stagnant. The free cash flow for the business is equal to the net profit and the return on capital is also high. The balance has a lot of surplus cash and this should increase in the coming years. The catalyst for unlocking value could be higher dividend, better growth rates in the topline or continued good performance of the topline and bottom line.

I receieved an email on the rumor of the open offer for Lanxess ABS yesterday from mayank. On googling i found the following news item

Lanxess ABS up on open offer hopes

In addition Lanxess ABS has posted the following on their website

Shareholders may take note that Lanxess India Private Limited, Mr Rakesh Agrawal, Mrs Uma Agrawal, Mr Rahul Agrawal, Mr. Vishal Agrawal, Geetganga Investment Private Limited and Tash Investment Private Limited, the promoters of company , have entered into an agreement on June 28, 2007 to sell their share in the Company to INEOS ABS (Jersey) Limited, a company controlled by the British chemical group INEOS. The parties expect the transaction to be completed at the end of September 2007.

So there is a possibility of an open offer. My own intrinsic value calculation is around 300 Rs / share, so even at the current price the stock is available at a 60-70% discount.

However there are some risks
1. The above is still a rumor. Rule no.1 of arbitrage is to avoid getting into such deals based on rumors.
2. Open offer may not be made at a very high premium above the current price ?
3. What happens to the minority shareholder if some decide not to accept the offer ?

I am still trying to analyse the pros and cons on the above. In addition, as i noted in the earlier email, i hold the stock and hence the above post may not be completely unbaised. so please do your own analysis.

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in comments

update : I recieved a comment from ranjit regarding the open offer announcement on BSE. So the open offer is at 201 and for 20% of the capital.

This information changes my view completely. Lanxess ABS holds 51% of the company and other indian promoters hold 19%. As both have agreed to sell out, INEOS would get 70% of the company outright. If the open offer is successful, then they could easily have 90% of the company. I am not sure of the numbers, but i think at 90% they can easily delist the company. So the key point is that investors who refuse to accept the open offer, could in the future be forced to do so. I think company has started doing well and 201 is clearly below the fair price of the company. However the developments are not surprising. This is not the first time an MNC has short changed its domestic shareholders.

update 07/03 – just saw this news on a likely open offer for lanxess ABS. thats a lucky break !!

I had posted the following on my old blog earlier.

Tuesday, May, 25th, 2004

Am i missing something

i have been analysing Bayer ABS.
Found the following positiives
1) selling at 6 time current estimates
2) has zero debt
3) has shown a growth of 10 % plus for the past 5 years
4) has reduced debt and capital employed ( returns in excess of 25 %)
5) Parent – Bayer has strong R&D in plastics
6) user industries such as telecom/ IT / Auto are growing
7) moderate competitive advantages in form of patents / good brand for some products / R&D support from parent

negatives
1) Bayer has not been very share holder friendly ( has vijay mallya as chairman !!!!!!)
2) trying to move several businesses into fully owned subsidaries
cant think of too many negatives. am i missing something ? am i wrong ?
Posted in Weblogs at 03:43:46 AM

I have been re-analysing the company and have come up with the following analysis

The company is now called Lanxess ABS. It is the largest product of ABS (60% market share) and SAN in india. The product is used in by various OEM such auto industry, consumer durables etc.

Performance
The topline for the company has increased by around 11% per annum for the last 6 years, but due to input price pressure, the bottomline has increased by only 3% p.a. The company has performed fairly well inspite of the spike in crude prices (which impacts the raw material costs). As a result of the crude price increase the net margin of the company has come down to 4-5%. The company was not able to pass on the increase in input cost immediately. However with stabilization of the crude prices, the net margins have now increased to around 5-6% and we chould see an increase in the net margins going forward.
The company has improved the various asset turnover ratios during the period. As a result the company has a heatlhy return on capital of 20%+ with zero debt. In addition the company holds almost 80-85 Crs of cash on books which is almost 25% of the market cap

Competition
The main competition for the company is Bhansali polymers which is the second largest company in the product space. Both companies have similar margin structure and seem to be operating as a duopoly. The company has decent pricing power and can maintain a resonable return on capital.

Valuation
With netprofit of around 28 Crs and cash of almost 80 Crs, I would atleast value the company at 450-500 crs. As a result the company is available at a discount of 30-40% of the intrinsic value.

caution : i hold this security. I may continue to hold or sell as i see fit. I may or may not post when i make a sale. Hence the above analysis (as always) is not a recommendation.

A few more investment ideas which have passed through the initial filters.

Alembic – A mid cap pharma company. Revenues have gone up from 550 Crs to around 750-800 Crs for the current year. Net profits in the same period has gone up from 30 odd crs to 80-82 Crs. The margins have doubled in the same period, however the ROE continues to around 20% due deterioration in inventory and fixed asset turns. The valuation at around 7-8 times PE looks interesting. Definitely worth further investigation.

Infomedia – The company is valued at around 20 times normalized earnings. The bottomline has been more or less stagnant. The reason for looking at the stock was it has appeared in rakesh jhunjhunwala’s portfolio recently. However I cannot see the value in it (and also I am not as smart as the big man to be able to see the value, so need to study the company more)

Gruh finance – A subsidiary of HDFC and selling at almost 6-7 times the latest quarter earnings. Seems to be a well managed company and worth a closer look. Diffcult to conclude from looking at the numbers alone in case of an HFC. However the company is defintely worth a closer look.

update : 06/26
Had a look at gruh finance again. It is selling at around 20 times annual earnings and 3 times book value. At this price the stock may not be over-valued, but does not look like a bargain too. A good company to track and wait for the valuations to come down a bit

Manugraph and VST – I will be posting detailed analysis for these companies in later posts.

In continutation of my previous posts (see here and here), I am posting a very rough analysis of a few more rejected and ‘in-process’ ideas. Again a disclaimer – I am not promoting or justifying any of these stocks. These stock may be injurious to your networth if you are looking for quick profits (if they come, no credit for me on that). With that out of the way, a few more ideas follow

No Go bucket

Motherson sumi systems – The company is priced at a PE of 25. Unlikely that the stock is undervalued. Just had a quick look at the financials and have no reason to believe that the stock could be undervalued.

Electrosteel – The company is into DI pipes and has a PE of around 7-8. The performance has been cyclical. The net profit reached a peak of 97 Crs in 2002-2003 and this performance was repeated only last year with a net profit of 108 Crs. The company raised capital via a GDR issue and has backward integrated into sponge iron. The economics of the business are ok and the performance has been a bit cyclical. The stock may be a bit undervalued, but I am not sure if the discount is more than 20-30% and hence I am not too excited by the stock. The company seems to be fine and the stock a bit undervalued, but I think there are better opportunities in the market.

Go bucket

Savita chemicals – A midcap chemicals company. Topline has grown from 250 crs to almost 700 odd crores. Netprofit in the same period has climbed from 11 crs to around 38 Crs. The company has a low debt on the balance sheet. The margins have held steady at 5% and the ROE is 20%+. The company may make a profit of 40-42 crs this year. At a market cap of around 350Crs the company seems to have a reasonable valuation of 7-8.

MRO-TEK – A small cap company into computer hardware. The topline has grown from 90 Crs to around 150 Crs and the net profit from 7 to around 17.5 Crs. This year could be lower at around 9-10 Crs. Net of cash the company seems to have a valuation of around 7-8. The margins have flucutated between 4-10% and the ROE has also fluctuated between 7-25 %. Cannot make up my mind on this stock. Will need to analyse further. However overall the stock does not look too exciting.