Goodyear India: Enjoy the Ride

Goodyear India (https://www.goodyear.co.in/)

Company Overview

Goodyear India is in the business of manufacturing and trading in tires, tubes and flaps. The company is a market leader in the Tractor Tires segment, with a ~30% market share (~22% in front tires and ~36% in rear tires). The company also manufactures CV tyres and some offroad tires. Along with this, they also trade in Goodyear branded PV tyres (Interestingly the company also imports and sells very few quantities of tires for airplanes).

Business Overview

The business is fairly straightforward. The major raw material is natural rubber. The products are produced out of the Ballabgarh plant. The trading business of PV tyres is done on behalf of Goodyear South Asia Tyres Private Limited in Aurangadabad (So very low margin, decent volume business).

In the farm segment (Which is its major breadwinner), the company supplies to almost every major OEM. They regularly win awards from being the preferred supplier. However, what with their tires being on the slightly premium side, they are not very big on the replacement market.

Currently, the company is venturing into the PV segment (i.e. Goodyear India itself), starting with SUV tires. In fact, the company launched 2 new tyres for the PV segment very recently. There are also plans to come up with tires specifically for EVs in India (This is not new for the parent at least. For instance, Goodyear Eagle Touring/TO tyres are already being marketed for EVs elsewhere).

Here’s the management’s latest interview discussing the business:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0nqD9E6eQM

Industry Overview

There is no need to justify the importance of farming in India. However, most of India’s agricultural land employs physical labor. The farm mechanization rates leave a lot to be desired:

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(Source)

If you’re wondering whether large, costly machines are actually a drag on the costs to farmers, they are not:

main-qimg-655ebc2613bdf78b5fa9ad60418df231
(Source)

There’s a proven direct relationship between farm power availability and farming yields. The savings are pegged at 15-20% for Seeds, 15-20% for Fertilizers and 5-20% for Cropping Intensity.

There are several uses in Tractors, but majorly in:

  • Converting waste land into cultivable land
  • Decreased workload on women
  • Ensuring farm safety
  • Encouraging young people to get into farming, increasing productivity

GOI has also, time and again, established the importance of its support to the farming community. The government’s various schemes on agricultural credit has been useful. In fact, a more recent move is the Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization. NABARD even came out with a detailed paper on why they feel this is important.

Business Analysis - SWOT

Strengths

  • GIL is backed by a strong global parent and work culture, which means a conservative financial outlook and a very long term view
  • Infact, all Goodyear tire-related R&D and technological innovation is done at Innovation centers in Akron, USA and Luxembourg, EU. In effect, what this means is that the subsidiaries/arms do not spend a dime on R&D, but get the full benefits of it (Or at the very least, incur very low expense on R&D since it is centralized)
  • Strong relationship with their OEM clients. In fact, in the farm segment last year they won ‘Best Supplier’ award from M&M and TAFE, while receiving ‘Best Delivery’ award from Escorts and an ‘Excellence’ award from John Deere. Many of these awards have been won in succession for several years, or at the least with only a few gap years.
  • Strong production management. The management team has insisted that they manage Supply-Demand very well and have had no problems with Working Capital. This shows, because the company has been operating at very low or negative Working Capital levels for the entire last decade.
  • As with most seasoned auto players, Goodyear India has a vast network of suppliers across India.

Weaknesses

  • Being an auto part manufacturer, they are linked directly to the auto cycle. Although the farm segment is not as cyclical as the PV or CV segment (Unless the downcycle is caused due to drying up of credit, which is what’s happening in part right now)
  • Rubber is the major raw material and any sudden spurts in price can hit the Margins. Even when the management insists that they manage their Margins well, the numbers tell a different picture. Rest assured, rubber prices do impact the bottomline in a meaningful way.
  • As already mentioned, Goodyear India farm tires are on the premium side and do not sell well on the replacement market

Opportunities

  • GOI’s push to double farm income and increase farm mechanization rates directly translates to commensurate business for the company
  • The latest venture into the CV space has been a long time coming and is definitely a good opportunity in front of the company today. But at this point, it is too early to judge just how big it is.
  • The focus on EV tires is a long pipe dream. But it could be a good optionality.

Threats

  • The single biggest threat facing the tires industry in India is China. Sadly, the import restrictions on tires is not big at all and cheap Chinese tires flood India every year. At least as far as GIL is concerned, this only further impacts their replacement business, because their OEM partners wouldn’t even dream about partnering with a knock-off tire manufacturer from China.
  • Any of the big tire players deciding to enter the farm tires market is always a possible threat (The entry barrier would not apply to them since they have their own networks)

Red Flags / Risks

Goodyear India, being backed by a well-known and clean global management, inherits many those good qualities too. There is nothing fishy going on anywhere in the company and I invite you to challenge my view.

That being said, GIL does remit some of its Sales to Goodyear Orient (Parent) as Trademark Fees and Regional Service Charges. The figure has been quite stable over the years and has even come down over the last half a decade:

Financials

Source: https://www.ratestar.in/company/goodyear/500168/Goodyear-India-Ltd-100168

In a short summary, I would say Goodyear India is extremely conservative when it comes to financing and growth. The liquid cash on their books is about ~25-30% of the Market Cap and has always been that way in the past. So if you’re looking for a high growth firm, this is not it. What it is, is a cash guzzler with a sizable market opportunity and good dividends to boot.

Valuation

I have not re-valued the company since I purchased it. I bought it at some discount to the CMP a few years back. So in my opinion, at CMP (Rs. 921) the stock is probably slightly undervalued. If I ever re-value the company, I will be sure to update this section.

Disclosure

Goodyear India is one of the largest positions (~15%) in my portfolio. My views may be biased.

Important References

Goodyear India Investor Relations
SMAM - Operational Guidelines
NABARD Paper on Farm Mechanization
ICICI Thematic Report on Farm Mechanization
A Brief History of Goodyear India

22 Likes

Where is the DCF ? would like to know more about valuations.

I will get back once I value the company again.

Hi Dinesh,

Thanks for the detailed post. I was looking at the historical valuations - ~ 15-20 year history. The company seems to be still trading higher than its median valuations. I am looking at P/B multiples as earnings can be volatile given the cyclicality. Would be interesting to see what your DCF throws up.

Best Regards,
Rohit

Disc: Not Invested

Flat results (Which is excellent, considering the widespread Auto slowdown). Margins have improved slightly. Cash balance and CCC position is stable.

But the tax break has helped in a 32% PAT Growth.

2 Likes

Quarterly

Revenue: -8%
PBT: -52%
PAT: -54%

9 Monthly

Revenue: -7.8%
PBT: -14.1%
PAT: -2.5%

Revenue is down as expected. PBT is impacted due to Inventory cost changes. But if we look at the tractor sales numbers, they are slowly picking up. Hopefully, the next year should be a much better year than this.

1 Like

Resignation of MD/CEO Mr. Rajeev Anand and the appointment of Mr. Sandeep Mahajan as the new MD/CEO (Some change in Directorship as well, but this is the big news).

http://www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachLive/43b2a0cf-bcd2-443e-b1c9-099accb30100.pdf

@bheeshma said it first!

2 Likes

Wanted to understand accounting for Inventory Loss. I know it is valued at either cost or FV (whichever is lower). But in which expense line entry is this included? Cost of material or Other expenses?

inventory losses are debited from the P&L account ( Cost of Goods sold) and the corresponding asset ( in this case inventory) is credited (reduced). Inventory losses are operational losses. You can go through any OMC p&l account to know the accounting treatment. They have frequent inventory losses

2 Likes

Looks like Goodyear would provide the research and Assurance International will take care of Manufacturing and Distribution. Interesting development, although the viability and Returns remain to be seen.

But the current MD has been instrumental in the market leadership in Farm Tyres. So, I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.

I just want to understand what is the percentage of sales in tractor tier in term of after market segment.

Has anyone else received the Rs. 80 / Share Dividend? I received it today, but amount seems slightly lower. It is only about Rs. 73 / Share. Just wondering if anyone else is facing the same problem.

(Dividend Announcement)

A TDS of 7.5% would have been deducted if total dividend exceeds Rs 10,000.

Its 7.5% if dividend exceeds rs 5000/-. But it looks like dividend received is less even if we deduct 7.5%…

Anybody else has any clue?

Yes, Dividend is slightly lower than 92.50% too.

Are there additional cess or some other deduction involved?

I have mailed the CS. Let’s see if we get an official response. Thank you for the response here.

There are no other deductions. Assuming your status as owner of the shares is Resident Indian, the amount you receive should be Rs 74 / share, which is 80 less 7.5%. All dividends I have received has been in line with this. There have been some rounding differences as TDS is rounded to the nearest / highest Rupee but that cannot be the case here.

You will receive a warrant soon that will give you the break-up.

Sometimes, if you say bought to receive shares just before the ex-date and the DP may not have credited it into your account for whatever reason, then the DP will receive it and it will be reflected in your running balance with the DP. You can check that with the Trading statement as will be clear in the warrant as well.

2 Likes

Thank you. I completely forgot about the Warrant. That might provide the answer, yes.

1 Like

Have received exactly 92.5% of the total dividend amount.

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CS responded to me with the Gross Dividend Amount and the Tax they deducted.

So the 7.50% is on both Interim and Final Dividend (Since the limit is for the entire year).

Now Tax Deducted / (Interim Dividend + Final Dividend) works out to exactly 7.50%

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Recommended a Final Dividend of Rs. 18 per equity share of Rs. 10 each and Special Dividend of Rs. 80 per equity share of Rs. 10 each, for the Financial Year ended March 31, 2021.

Q4 Results

The Company’s fourth-quarter total income were Rs 574 crore, up 50% from a year ago. The increase was driven by robust Farm demand, our distribution expansion initiatives in Consumer Replacement business and base impact of Covid in March 2020.

Fourth-quarter profit after tax were Rs 43 crore compared to Rs 13 crore a year ago, an increase of 240%. The improvement was driven by higher volumes, increased factory utilization and cost efficiencies. PAT as % of sales were 7.6% compared to 3.4% in same period last year.

Cash performance

As of March 31, 2021, the Company had Cash & bank balance of Rs 597 crores. In comparison, the Company had Rs 546 crores cash at March 31, 2020. During the year, the Company had declared an Interim Dividend of Rs 80 per equity share in December 2020, resulting in outflow of Rs 185 crores.

Good results + 98rs Dividend :slight_smile:

Goodyear still valued quite reasonably, if we remove cash from market cap 2,167-597= 1570cr and we account for June qtr lets say ~40cr pat, then roughly PAT would be = 49+49+43+40 =181cr PAT, 1570/181 = 8.6PE for a MNC co which shares wealth with minority shareholders.

Disc: One of the top holding hence biased…!

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