3M India: Stock to Postit in a portfolio

No hard feelings, so no place for any apology and thank you for the encouraging words, I wouldn’t be here if stocks are pure science.

Thank you for the explanation. This sure looks like a business one would want to hold for years provided it is available at a reasonable price. I will try to understand the business further.

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Hi Amit,

My 2 cents a growing company should invest profits in its own business and not distribute it as dividends.

Its sales growth is 10% for almost a decade now. They do not appear to be wanting to increase sales any more aggressively. The management is probably focused on getting all the parameters right every year, and do not want to rock the boat.

It shows confidence of the management when they distribute the free-cash, which is very hard to come-by for most others. Management would accumulate cash, if it perceived risk of reduced flow of cash in the near term, or increased working capital needs.

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Unaudited financial results (Standalone and Consolidated) for the quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2018

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Conslidated sales and net profit growth of 16% and 17% respectively is moderate in my view. The standalone numbers are lower at around 14% sales growth and 11% net profit growth yoy.

On cost element, while by Cost of material consumed increased marginally, (with increased Indian production as represented by numbers) and Other expense increased, same was partially offset by major decline in Employee cost. (Not sure but may be due to Empolyee share benefit of 3M US, which may have lower impact due to lower price as on Dec 2018 quarter as compared with previous quarters).

While there is decline in other income, overall net profit growth of 20% on consolidated basis.

Find enclosed my working file on Q3FY19.
3M Q3FY19 results.xlsx (16.4 KB)

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Thanks for your tables! I could not understand the reasons for sharp contraction in employee costs yoy and is it sustainable? Is it due to discontinued ops? Key takeaways for me was 36% jump in operational EBIT ignoring noise from other income which will correct itself down the line.

Disc: In the watchlist for for sometime but no holding as of now

Boarders, any impact on 3M India entity?

Where can I find annual reports of 3M India. On their website, I can only find results but not the annual reports?

How did you find it? Is there a link somewhere to all their annual reports?

Just Google search for 3m India annual reports…

Poor results from 3M India. 2% Quarterly Sales growth with 38% decline in net proft when compared to last year. Across the segment, PBIT is lower than March 2018 quarter.

For FY2019, Consolidated net sales increased by 11% (as compared with FY18) and net profit increased by 5%. Major jump in raw material cost and other expenditure were main reason for deteriorated profit growth. Let us wait to get more insight in perfornance.

Discl: Among my Top 10 holdings, No trading in last 30 days, My view may be biased due to my holding. Investor shall consult their advisor before making any investment decision.

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Dhiraj, are you able to figure out that why the margins have fallen this much all across? Has management given any reason for that?

Kanv

MD/CEO Debarti Sen resigns and is being moved to the US in the parent company

Search Here
https://www.3mindia.in/3M/en_IN/company-in/about-3m/financial-facts-local/

2017-18 AR

2016-17 AR

2015-16 AR

2014-15 AR

2013-14 AR

2012-13 AR

2011-12 AR

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I also have access only to released financial results. As said in previous post, we find acorss the segment deterioration in EBIT margin. Also, RM cost as per centage of sales increased. So I believe that it could be impact of adverse forex which may cover up in next 3-6 months.

Discl: Same as last post

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must have been asked to quit and kicked up due to poor performance. Typical of US MNCs

Actually quite the opposite. She has been moved to 3M USA. They would like the best talent being employed in a more global role I guess…

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To begin with 3M is a very high quality company with reasonable growth (around 10%), it has great products and long runway. There are very few companies in the markets which have the pedigree that 3M has, the only other company that currently comes in mind is Honeywell Automation.

The question is why investors end up putting money in companies like 3M at very high valuations and also what is the nature of this money (long term or short term).

To me in a lot of cases the current investing in 3M is a case of 'High Quality Switching Conundrum’
people who were earlier invested in Page and Eicher do not see many high quality investable opportunities and having seen these companies trade at very high PE ratios when they grew the expectation is the same for 3M/Honeywell. For those looking to invest make sure you understand the risks involved (primarily valuation) and that you are not following the herd behavior.

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