Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Atul Auto - Waiting for Normal Times

What does the company do?
Atul Auto is Gujarat's no.1 Three-Wheeler (3W) manufacturer. It has, in past few years, spread its wings across the country with 200 primary dealerships and 120 sub dealerships across 20 states in India. It manufactures and sell 3W in both Goods and Passengers segment in domestic market as well as other developing countries in Africa, Latin America and SE Asia.

How does it earn money?
Atul sells 3W under the brands of Atul Gem, Atul Shakti, Atul Elite etc. It derives more than 90% of its revenue from domestic market. Passenger sub-segment forms large share of its global sales (56%), followed by Cargo segment (40%) and spares and e-rickshaw forms the rest. 

Atul Auto has a manufacturing plant located in Rajkot with an installed capacity of 60,000 units where it achieved capacity utilization of 83.59% in 2019. With company running its plants at peak capacity, the growth in sales will require expansion in its manufacturing capacity. For this, they have acquired land near Ahmedabad and are almost 90% finished with building a plant with another 60,000 units capacity (in two phases of 30,000 each). 

Although the company has funded the expansion from its internal accruals, the plant delivery has been really slow with management acquiring the land in 2014 and promised to complete it by 2017 end. We are almost half way through 2020 and the plant is not ready yet for commercial production. 

With ongoing pandemic situation, existing plant utilization has fallen off the cliff to less than 30%, it is expected that management will wait wait for demand to recover a bit before getting the second plant fully operational.  

Three Wheeler Industry
India is the largest manufacturer, consumer and exporter of 3W in the world. In FY2019, we produced and sold more than 1M 3Ws. The industry has been growing at a pace of 9-10% every year. 

3W fulfills a critical last mile connectivity function in the transportation market. Many Indians use 3W for intra-city travel and transport of goods. The countries with developing infrastructure and not so good road conditions are potential export target markets. 

In 2020, pandemic has led to shut down of many plants and borders completely or partially for several months. The numbers for this year will naturally come down. It is expected that industry condition will get normal by the end of the year.

As many fleet owners who have financed their purchase either through banks or NBFCs, and have incurred almost zero revenue due to Covid induced lockdown, some stress is expected in the system. It is also expected that by the second half of the year, mobility options for many people in urban areas is bound to shift from large public transport systems like (local trains, buses) to taxis and autos. This may led to some demand recovery for 3W as the vehicle for choice for most cost sensitive customers. 

However, in rural or tier 2/3 cities, where 3W carry load of many passengers, there remains few concerns. As panic conditions around the pandemic subsides, it is expected that the rural market will also return to normalcy by the end of year. 

Also, any govt stimulus, either in terms of lowering of interest rates which will reduce the cost of financing of 3W or any govt stimulus to boost capital goods/infra demand in the economy bodes positive for the sector.

Competition
Bajaj auto is a clear market leader in 3W segment with 57% market share. Other major players in the market are Piaggio (~24% market share), TVS (~2%), M&M (~9%). 

Market is clearly very competitive and Atul Auto is facing challenges in retaining whatever little market share from leaders like Bajaj Auto who have improved their grab from 47% in FY16 to 57% in FY20 where Atul has lost from 8% to 6%. 

Main reason for this market share loss has been Bajaj Auto's aggressive focus on 3W Goods segment where it was little apprehensive earlier and avoided entering. Bajaj Auto has improved its market share from 1% in FY16 to 27% in FY20 and took away share from Piaggio (from 53% to 42%) which is market leader in Goods segment and Atul Auto whose market share went down from 21% to 16% in five years.    

Past Performance
Atul Auto has done really well in the past with 10 yr (2009-2019) average growth rate being more than 20%. The firm has grown its revenues in almost all years except the year of demonetization (FY17) where it recorded a decline of 10% and FY20 (-6%) where Covid-19 has negatively impacted revenues across all sectors. 

With lockdown continuing in many major cities and Atul Auto's plant operating at less than 50% utilization, the revenues for FY21 are also expected to decline by atleast 40-50%. It remains to be seen, how the firm defends its market share once the market is fully open. 

Before the Covid induced lockdown happened, the firm was operating at almost full capacity, and was able to sell almost all its produce. With the new plant up and running maybe in last quarter of FY21, it is expected that Atul Auto will be able to bounce back to its 2019 volume very quickly. 

The firm has solid balance sheet and financial profile. The firm so far has managed to stay debt free and boasts of return on capital in excess of 30%. It also has enough liquidity to overcome any short term crisis.  The Company has pre-approved bank credit facilities of Rs.15 crores from IDBI Bank Limited and $3.50mn from EXIM Bank in the form of cash credit, working capital demand loan and pre/ post shipment credit to meet the requirement of working capital in future.


Look Ahead
The firm also looks reasonable priced at an earning multiple of 6.5x and price to book of slightly more than 1.1x. The stock is depressed due to uncertainity related to Covid and auto industry move to convert their vehicles from BS-IV to BS-VI compliant in addition to the fact it operates in a very competitive market and faces challenge in gaining market share.

To overcome these challenges, Atul Auto is preparing to be future ready as it builds a strong product portfolio with e-auto and e-rickshaws, petrol 3W for export market and urban areas, grows its dealer network and availability of help to its domestic customers in financing their purchase through its NBFC associate Khushbu Finance Pvt Ltd. 

The firm is also building a network of service attendants "Atul Sahay" for providing direct technical assistance in the servicing and maintenance of vehicles. The growth will be mentored by a prudent and debt averse management and the firm will definitely be able to strengthen its return profile.

Risks to look out for is delay in monthly sales recovery due to lockdown or restriction in goods and labour movement, restricted lending by financial institutions, adverse govt policy, challenges with export markets and any further than planned delays in operationalizing the second plant.

Conclusion
Atul Auto is a small horse in a very competitive 3W market race. It has been able to slowly strengthen its position outside its home market, Gujarat. Management seems to be conservative and prudent with their capital and ambitious enough to compete with likes of Bajaj Auto, Piaggio and M&M in both domestic and export market. 

Atul Auto has a lot of headroom to grow but gaining market share will be a challenge. The firm has a solid balance sheet, returns and liquidity profile and looks set to regain its growth once the markets return to normalcy.   

At the current valuation of 6.5x P/E and 1.1x of P/BV, the stock does look attractive and risk reward profile looks promising. It will be wise for an investor to continue monitor the monthly sales numbers to get the direction on recovery and also keep an eye on the developments in auto industry as it transitions towards greater safety and greener environment.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Warren Buffett On Moats And Millions

Excellent presentation by Jeetay Investments on Moats.

You can read my analysis of Moats and Floats here.
Warren Buffett on Moats
Click on the picture below to access the slides.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Moats & Floats: Info Edge (India) Ltd.

Disclaimer: This blogpost draws heavily from the teachings of Prof. Sanjay Bakshi, Warren Buffett and Pat Dorsey.

There are a lot of ways to make money in the stock markets. You can scan the stocks on frequent basis and try to find any anomalies between market pricing and perceived intrinsic value of the company. Then you bet on closing of this gap.

There is another way. A better way, but the one that requires more hard work. In this method, you avoid looking at the markets at first place. You see, if you pick a company by scanning from day’s winners or losers list, your valuation would be colored. This is what is known as Anchor Bias and it will have an adverse effect on your judgement skills. So, you pick a company – a random pick. You go to the website and download last 10 years of annual reports and start going through them one by one.

You don’t have to read all these annual reports cover to cover, you can pretty much focus on just Chairman’s letter and MD&A (a tip I got from Jana’s awesome blog Seeking Wisdom).

The rationale behind going through earlier annual reports is that you should view the business as an unfolding movie, not a still photograph. Also, you want to know how they arrived at their current position in the market today and whether management is aggressive or conservative and delivers on its promises.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Madhav Marbles - Part II

"I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime." - Jim Rogers in Street Smart

There is no doubt that Jim Rogers is one of the best minds on investing we know as of today. He has authored several books sharing his investment philosophy with millions of readers worldwide. He is there on top of my people-whose-advice-I-follow list, right on top with Warren Buffet and Seth Klarman.

What Jim Rogers is essentially saying is what Warren calls "waiting for a sweet pitch" or time "when you can buy a dollar for forty cents". Seth has elaborated on this concept in his book Margin of Safety. He advices his readers to be patient and wait when Mr. Market throws you a deal too hard to resist. And when it does, you go all in.

"The greater the undervaluation, the greater the margin of safety to investors" - Seth Klarman

I intended to write just an update to my earlier blog post on Madhav Marbles. I attribute this pick (too early?) to Peter Cundill's successful strategy of balance sheet investing and ideas and teachings of legendary investors mentioned above.

Mr. Market in its all glory and excitement sometimes throws up a company which is trading way below its liquidation value. You can easily buy the company, sell off the assets at a discount, pay off all the liabilities in full and still have lot of cash to spare.

Madhav Marbles is one such stock in my view. A stock that is so clearly undervalued in the current market - it is neat money just lying there in the corner to be picked up.

I am attaching the updated tables for FY14 results for my readers to see. It is obvious that the stock - though has gained 50% in last four months, is still trading below its liquidation value.

You can read the first part of the post here: Madhav Marbles - Value Buy or Value Trap

Disclaimer: Invest at your own risk, you can lose money on a misprint :)

Friday, February 7, 2014

Engineers India: Solid fundamentals; Buy for Long Term

Engineers India Ltd’s follow-on-public offer has finally hit the market yesterday. Govt. is looking forward to raise around INR 500 Crores through divesting its 10% stake in the PSU mini-ratna company, where it currently holds 80.4% of total share. EIL is offering its share in a price band of INR 145 – 150 until Feb 10, 2014 (Monday). EIL is also offering a discount of INR 6 to retail investors (ones who will be bidding for less than INR 2 lakhs) and its employees.

Engineers India is a leading EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) and Consultancy organization of India. It undertakes major complex engineering projects like construction, expansion and maintenance of oil refineries, port terminals, chemical and fertilizer plants etc. It has grown its net profit at a CAGR of 25% in last 9 years (until Mar 2013). With a ten-year average return on capital employed of solid 34.5%, the firm has solid capital allocation and project execution track record.


Now, if investors look at the balance sheet of the firm, they will realize the true genius of its management. The firm has net operating assets of only INR 404 crores on which it has generated operating profits in tune of INR 815 crores in FY13 The firm has net worth of INR 2,295 crores while the total treasury of the business is at INR 2,436 crores. If you include current investments in the calculations made in the table below, the net operating assets stands at negative figure.


Essentially, company has more treasury than shareholders’ funds. This is because in current uncertain economic environment, policy paralysis, no new investments are happening on the ground. That does not mean in any way reflect on the superior capital allocation capabilities of the company's management. So, company is sitting with tons of cash just waiting to deploy it to earn solid ~35% returns.

Conclusion
Not every good business is necessarily a good investment at a given price. Even some of the strong business models have generated negative returns for its investors if they bought it when the stock was overvalued.

The simplest of the way to find out whether the stock is under or overvalued is to ask a simple question: How much future growth in free cash flows current market price is factoring in?
My reverse DCF model suggests the implied FCF growth rate for next 10 years is -11% with a hefty discount rate of 15% and terminal growth rate of 3%. Little hard to believe for the company which has grown its profits at 25% in last 10 years.

You can of course arrive at your own valuation by changing the assumptions of discount rate and terminal growth rates.

Backed with all these calculations, it appears that EIL is a good buy and retail investors should make a bid in its FPO.

Disclaimer: Invest at your own risk, you can lose money on a misprint :)

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Madhav Marbles - Value buy or Value Trap

“Ninety to 95% of all my investing meets the Graham tests. The times I strayed from a rigorous application of this philosophy I got myself into trouble.”

“We do liquidation analysis and liquidation analysis only.”

“One of the dangers about net-net investing is that if you buy a net-net that begins to lose money your net-net goes down and your capacity to be able to make a profit becomes less secure. So the trick is not necessarily to predict what the earnings are going to be but to have a clear conviction that the company isn’t going bust and that your margin of safety will remain intact over time.”


These were some of the extracts from the wonderful book by Christopher Risso-Gill on legendary superinvestor Peter Cundill, “There’s Always Something to Do”. 

Peter was a fan of Graham’s net-net approach and he used it extensively with tweaks of his own to build a portfolio of international deep value stocks which generated 15%+ returns for its investors for well above 30 years!

Today we will try to use Peter's approach of using liquidation analysis to find an investment opportunity in Indian equity space.

I want readers to take a look at the balance sheet snapshot of Madhav Marbles & Granites Ltd. which is in the business of manufacturing and processing Granite tiles and slabs, wind power generation and realty. The company reported a net revenue of Rs.653 million, EBIT of Rs.50 million and net profit of Rs.31 million in FY13. The company had operating cash flow of Rs. 44 million and has been cash flow positive for last five years (maybe longer).


One look at the balance sheet, and you can easily make out that all the liquidity ratios are pretty high: current ratio is 6.6 and quick ratio is 6.2. Actually, you'll see that company’s cash position covers more than 70% of all of its current liabilities. In the event of company needing some urgent funds, it can do so very easily. Even in a distress scenario of 50% marked down on total assets position, the firm can easily meet all its liabilities.

Now the best part of this post. The current market capitalization of Madhav Marbles is Rs. 17 crores. Its liquidation value, after marking down the entire assets by 50% and adjusting for contingent liabilities is around Rs. 32 crores. The liquidation value is double of current market value of this company. See the table below for illustration.


To re-emphasize one can buy the entire company for Rs. 168 millions, sell all the assets at 50% discount, pay off all the liabilities and will still be left with some cash to spare.

I am not sure whether this is a classical deep value investment or a value trap. The company is priced for bankruptcy when its cash position is sufficient to take care of most of its current liabilities.The stock has been largely ignored by the general market with last one year average volume of few hundred stocks on NSE.  I searched for any fraud, scam or cheating case against the company and found nothing.

Let me know what readers think about this investment and if there is some major development or issue with the company I am missing.

Disclaimer: Invest at your own risk, you can lose money on a misprint :)

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Mohnish Pabrai on his learnings from Warren Buffet

I first came to know about Mohnish Pabrai when a friend recommended his awesome book "The Dhandho Investor" to me in beginning of my investment schooling. The book is, no doubt, one of the best books I have read on Value investing and is a must read for anyone about to venture into the field of analysing business, seeking risk and valuing opportunities.

Today, I am sharing one of his videos where he shares his learning from legendary Warren Buffet. Do watch and learn!

Hat Tip: Alpha Ideas