BCL Industries - Ethanol Pick (Capacity 3.5x in Next 2 Yrs)

After named in MAHADEV batting APP scam/ DMCC etc., I dig deeper to find history of pramoter and found this FIR for their KISSAN FAT Limited, Rajinder Mittal(DIN-00033082) pramoter of BCL. Though NPA case settled but what I find is Report of Forensic Auditor. Forensic Auditor observed that the borrower company had diverted the funds to sister concern viz. M/s. BCL (Bhatinda Chemical Limited) and M/s. Ganpati Townships Limited. The firm had prepared two sets of audited Financial Statement for the year ended 2014 i.e. one copy for bank and other for ROC/ Income Tax/ Statutory authorities.
BCL FRAUD_compressed.pdf (5.1 MB)

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Results are very disappointing, we are expecting improvement in margins but nothing improved even the ethanol selling price is hiked by 9%.

Management commentary on the margins is also not satisfactory.

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In any company, my first take is in the integrity of the promoter over and above the business. Whatever may be business/ fundamental, if the promoter is not genuine then nothing to shareholders at large .

I smell manipulation of books of accounts in the past. Now, we will dig deeper for the last 4 to 6 year’s accounts to judge the promoter’s integrity and honesty etc. etc. Please can anyone give comments for the above matters…? Anyone has issues for the company, let us know so that while doing research we can keep it in mind and as a joint effort of all of us, we can reach a conclusion.

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I was also expecting better margins. Management could have communicated better during the Q3 call about the impact on margins because of elevated Maize prices. What most of the investors took away from the call is that in Q4, we will benefit from

  1. Cost savings from the Boiler plant
  2. Hike in Ethanol prices

Management has now said that this dip in margins should reverse as Maize prices have cooled off due to bumper harvest. Lets see.

Even if there isnt much improvement I expect the following in the current financial year:

Revenue around Rs 2400 cr (Rs 1750 cr for Distillery and Rs 650 from Edible Oil (EO))
EBTDA of around Rs. 240-250 cr (Rs 220-230 cr from Distillery, Rs 20 cr from EO)

*Wild guess for EO numbers, as I am not clear on the path to be followed for EO business.

I actually am eager for them to ramp down EO business as fast as possible, and the company to be not categorized under the Edible Oil sector. It impacts the margins of the business as well as the multiple the stock gets from the market.

Sometime after the current EO plant is wrapped up and some required machinery moved to the Distillery land, BCL will also receive proceeds from selling the 11 acre plot in Bhatinda where their current EO complex stands. Anyone who has idea about Bhatinda land values can do some scuttlebutt and share what may be the ballpark figure.

Now what an investor needs to decide what should be the stock price of a company generating around Rs 250 cr EBITDA at around 10% margin (13-14% for Distillery, low single for EO). I feel it is undervalued currently by a fair margin.
The year after we will have hardly any EO, margin accretive 75KLPD Biodiesel and 150 KLPD additional Distillery capacity)

Disclosure: Invested.

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I agree with your view that fraudulent management will always look into different ways to cash out money from business.

1 thing I don’t understand is that BCL management doesn’t take any dividends, dividends are only for minority shareholders. Why they took this decision and lost the dividend amount

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Some thing which is beyond our understanding is there, RM cost increased slightly but It should be mitigated by the higher ethanol prices.

In Q3 call also Kushal told that new harvest will decrease the maize price but nothing happened in Q4, so I am not expecting any softness in the prices and improvement in margins.

Only WB 100KLPD numbers will be added from Q1 onwards, no more further triggers

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While I share your disappointment, I do believe that Kushal was talking about the new harvest from Bihar and he stated that the benefit would accrue in the ‘coming quarters’ (we believed that it would be from Q4, we can say he should have specified that it won’t be in Q4).
We have to keep few things in mind

  1. Though the call was for Q3, it was being held when half of Q4 had already passed, Kushal had clearly highlighted that the current procurement cost was Rs 24.3, which is a jump of more than 10-15% as generally the procurement cost was Rs 21-22. That quantum of jump is by no means small. The price hike of Ethanol was around 9% while the cost increase was 10-15%.
    [Edit: I think I understand why some investors consider that the cost hike was small and margins should have still been better as Ethanol prices increased by Rs. 5.9 while maize price increased by ‘just’ Rs 2.5-3.5. We need to think in % terms rather than absolutes, specially when 1 Kg maize doesn’t produce 1 ltr of Ethanol]
  2. Compare BCL performance with its peer Gulshan Poly (in distillery segment), BCL has done better in terms of margins consistently. Even their margins were subdued because of raw material pressure.
  3. Agree, other than additional revenue from new 100KLPD coming online this quarter, there are no other ‘triggers’, but if the current price is below its fair price, that could itself act as trigger and once (if/when) some bigger players start entering and the price starts showing momentum, retail will also start piling on which they are now leaving for a broken company/stock.

Disclosure: Invested since 3-4 yrs and pyramiding. Not a buy/sell reco. Just sharing my thoughts here.

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Came across this article which nicely explains the benefits of Ethanol from corn/maize to the Economy, environment and farmers. The author has laid out what steps the Govt should take to support this budding industry which will help us in energy security and sustainable development.

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As per the presentation 62% of revenue contributed by Edible Oil and page No 39 of said ppt shows 831cr revenue from edible oil… Both figures dont match… Kindly share your thoughts…

It’s a typo. 62% should be for Distillery and 38% for Edible Oil (EO).
Since past few quarters BCL’s main revenue generator is Distillery segment, and this segments contribution to profit and cashflow far outweighs EO segment’s contribution. This gap is only going to increase with the 100KLPD additional capacity now online. For this reason, I had written to company’s IR few months back to explore the possibility of changing the categorization of BCL on exchanges from Edible Oil to something which more aptly suggests company’s new focus, its margin profile and profitability drivers. EO is generally a low single digit margin business while ENA+Ethanol+Biodeisel is around mid-teens. That greatly impacts the multiples a stock commands in the market.

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