Holmarc Opto-Mechatronics - R&D play

phreakv6 · October 26, 2024, 11:02am

Holmarc was started in ‘93 by Jolly Cyriac and Ishach Sainuddin and is located in Kochi, Kerala. They manufacture scientific and engineering equipments used in research labs (DRDO, ISRO, BARC) and engineering institutions (IITs, IISc, BITS) and of late also have very strong exports to academic and research institutions abroad as well, from US (29 unique buyers from US), Canada and APAC region (35+ countries, 12 of them added in the last FY). The company has 438 domestic customers and 98 foreign customers (20 domestic and 19 foreign are new customers added in FY24).

I was skeptical at first to see such a company in the SME space, that too out of kerala, so dug in quite deep to figure out a lot of things which I have tried to cover in this post. What surprised me is the amount of information in the AR for such a tiny company. There’s a certain preciseness to the reporting of numbers here that’s uncommon (Most of them check out when dissecting with third-party data).

Product segments

These are the segments the company operates in. What’s nice to see is that there are a lot of segments which are growing over 2x in the last 3 yrs. Some of them like Optics and Measuring instruments are at over 4x!

Products
The company has a plethora of products across the categories listed above. Though they haven’t mentioned a number, I believe there’s easily a few hundred products if you click through the links under products.

Their youtube channel has over 100 product demos. A few which I liked

Quantum Efficiency & Spectral Response Measurement used for testing solar cell efficiency
Spray Pyrolysis equipment
Confocal Raman spectrometer
Solar simulator

What is also nice is the consistency in introducing new products to the market. They introduced Digital in-line holography microscope, inverted fluoroscence microscope, triboelectric measurement system, solar simulator, quantum efficiency measurement system (for testing solar cells), LBIC etc in FY23 and Raman spectrometer, Laser scribing/ablation/cutting station, UV Laser lithography system, thermocycler etc. in FY24 (10 listed in FY24 AR).

Some of these new products are already finding takers in the market. Take for eg. the Raman spectrometer which has a value between 25-50 lakhs!

ISRO had a tender for one. This tender was won by Holmarc. The total value of the spectrometer is 45.7 lakhs for 1 unit!

Here’s one more from ISRO for Semi-automated microscope with Galvano attachment for Laser ablation system.

This too won by Holmarc and its for 29.98 lakhs for 1 unit.

This one as per last year’s AR was developed for a Canadian university (I could locate this in the export data and it checks out)

I think these should demonstrate the capability of the company and the trust these institutions have in Holmarc’s ability. In some of these bids, Holmarc is the only vendor capable of doing the customisations required by the customer. The customer has the technical spec as well provided and Holmarc is able to custom build it for them.

One more thing i see post IPO is that there are high-value items in the exports as well. The number of items with value > 10 lakhs is

'20 - 2
'21 - 1
'22 - 4
'23 - 8
'24 - 16

We still have a quarter to go in 2024 and there are already 2x the number of > 10 lakhs products in exports. The capital infused in IPO is certainly helping the company take up multiple higher working capital products is how I see it.

Growth
Overall company growth as well has been very good.

One would quickly notice growth slowing down between 2023 and 2024. The company has been starved of capital for growth once they crossed the 25 Cr revenue mark. The same can be seen in AR from the year before the IPO

Unfortunately the IPO happened only in Q3, FY24 so the target mentioned here can be assumed for FY25 (40 Cr) and 60 Cr for FY26. Also worth noting is the TAM mentioned of 15000 Cr. This is a small fish in the ocean and can grow for several years if the promoters do the right things (which they have for the last 30 yrs from their bootstrapped base to the IPO).

IPO
This was the company’s thought-process - again very precise in how much to raise and what it will be used for.

That is exactly what they ended up doing as the FY23 AR mentioned.

Out of naivety or misguidance, they actually priced the IPO reasonably at 8x TTM earnings in a sea of expensive SME IPOs (This missing greed is somewhat of a concern - more on that later)

There’s also no hanky panky as usually happens in IPOs where there’s dilution and shares issued cheaply to promoters before a huge markup in the IPO. The SHP looks the same before IPO as it did 2 years back

In fact looks the same since 2006. In 2000 and 2006 dilution Jolly Cyriac participated while Sainuddin didn’t which is why he has higher than the CFO. Otherwise both were equal partners at incorporation in '93 (They were classmates from IIT Madras)

The prices have been flat for a year around 100-120 levels with occasional dips below 100.

Now onto how they utilised the IPO proceeds vs what they said they will do in FY23 AR.

2.5 Cr capex as envisioned and 2.25 Cr in WC utilised. The rest will be used to expand further.

As per the Chairman’s letter, the first phase of expansion was completed by March 31, 2024 to increase production capacity to 3 Cr/month of products. Current expansion would have brought it to 4 Cr/ month as of Sept '24. As of Apr '25 this would be at 5 Cr/month making it ready for FY26 to do 60 Cr topline.

The company has also hired employees at a brisk pace to fuel this growth.

FY22 - 216
FY23 - 260
FY24 - 343

Haven’t seen a AR that explains how a 38% gain in topline was achieved. While most managements will take credit before the IPO, here they are saying 8% is due to low base and 6% due to inflation and so on (again, the precision!)

Now onto the productivity bit, because the company’s employee cost is a major component in the costs.

o

You can see the 5% producitivty improvement between FY22 and FY23 as mentioned in the above screenshot but since then lot of hires have been made and training for them is underway even as the capex is underway.

So there’s lot of scope for margin improvement in the next few years. They are targeting a 10% producitivity improvement for the next 4 years which should augur quite well.

While we speak of employees, its also worth noting the number of people in design and r&d roles in the payroll who create these products

One more major change since IPO (this is from FY23 AR before the IPO) is to move from “sell and produce mode” to “produce and sell” mode for at least some products which are standartised and have good demand. This is why the inventory days have gone up as well. The receivable days are however stable.

Industry
Some of the biggest players in this space

Thermo-Fisher Scientific
Bruker
Horiba
Renishaw
B&W Tek

There’s no point doing any industry analysis considering the size of Holmarc (33 Cr sales) and the TAM (15k Cr in India alone and $44b worldwide). The have a strong cost advantage and as per AR have invested in marketing post IPO, so we can hope they can grow fast.

Valuation
The company is fairly priced and is not very cheap like it was at IPO. However, if they do manage to grow 35% CAGR till 2030 and get to 200 Cr topline, a 110 Cr market cap is perhaps not a lot. In the near-term in FY26 they should be able to do 60 Cr and with producitivty improvements, I think they can do a PAT of close to 10 Cr in ~2 years time. Technically I think 100-120 should be a strong base so not much to lose.

Risks

I am worried there are little communist tendencies (employees vs shareholders as in communism vs capitalism), especially while looking at the employee costs. However, on looking at median remuneration and how much the MD/CFO are taking home (1 lakh per month + 1% sales commission), I think this fear might be misplaced
Warranty is lifetime on their products. They seem to be proud of it also. They want customers to repair equipment and reuse them and not throw them away ever.
image1600×385 190 KB
There’s a definite lack of greed and a leaning towards sustainability from what I can see
Irregular power supply (seriously!). This was mentioned in DRHP and also AR. This might be an issue since its in a non-industrial city like Kochi
So far growth has come from academic institutions and govt. R&D labs. They should try to break into institutions like pharma companies to be able to grow further as they grow bigger. There’s no track record here to speak of yet (They have attended numerous trade fairs, pharma expos, machinery expos etc. in FY24 as per AR which shows a lot of intent to change this)
Lock-in shares have been unlocked a month ago. Typically there’s a post IPO dumping once lock-in gets over. It could happen here also (No sign of it however at current valuations though lot of them were unlocked 26th Sept)

Also important to note that these investors have been holding from 1993 upon company formation. Dont think they are playing the IPO pop game.

Conclusion
I’ve perhaps rambled on for too long. Simply put, the bet is on India investing more on R&D in the coming years and the company growing its exports strongly (wants to take it from 20% to 50% by FY28) and also in getting into high value products (> 10 lakh products) while also improving producitivty. It may or may not play out but with my leaning towards companies doing interesting things, I was tempted to take the bet though I don’t typically touch SMEs

Sources

Disc: Have a small position from around 100-120 levels taken last week (whatever was available to buy in this range). This is a highly illiquid stock with even 10-12% spread sometimes, so please be very cautious and don’t place market orders without looking at the ASK. I am not qualified to advise, please do your due diligence

ashmaan_aftab · October 27, 2024, 9:40am

Class-I Local Supplier on GeM

Ashfak2b · October 27, 2024, 6:32pm

Thx for the excellent analysis @bm and didn’t felt it as long as you have beautifully focused it on management, and quality of their reporting. While reading through the report and AR one thing i thought of is 'Do they have any IP rights or not? Or do they have any collaborations with others to use any IP rights/license? Couldn’t trace any from last 2 AR’s, except for some Device trademark, and Word Trademark, both issued in 2021 and 2022. I do not have much clue about the industry they operate, and given the size of the co., not sure they must be working towards those and filing for it??

Adding few other bit of findings that could be worth highlighting. The tax case mostly a negligible item, but keeping it only for reference.

1. The company had a property tax case against Kalamassery Municipality. It was initially quashed by the high court, however the municipality went ahead and filed an appeal against the judgement. The case is still pending as per AR (May, 2024). Not sure, how much of a financial impact it may have (if goes against the co.) though its most likely not a possibility.

Incerpts from the indiakannon site.

The case involves a dispute over the levying of property tax on Holmarc Opto Mechatronics by the Kalamassery Municipality. The company contested the property tax assessment order and demand notice issued by the municipality. The dispute centers on whether Holmarc’s industrial unit within an industrial estate is exempt from property tax.

2. While going through directors list and associated companies, I noticed few relations with “Greentreat Machines Private Limited” and Holmarc Opto-Mechatronics Limited. Not sure, if the company is still active, and having any business. The following is what i could trace from the Annual report.

Past Associate Company: Holmarc’s annual report for FY2023-24 mentions that Greentreat Machines Private Limited was an associate company of Holmarc until March 15, 20211. An associate company is typically an entity in which another company has a significant influence but not control, often through a minority ownership stake.

50% Shareholding: Holmarc held a 50% shareholding in Greentreat Machines Private Limited until that date.

Promoter Disassociation: Jolly Cyriac, Holmarc’s promoter, resigned from Greentreat Machines Private Limited on March 16, 2023. Likely the formal disassociation between Holmarc and Greentreat Machines Private Limited.

Based on the above, Greentreat Machines Private Limited was previously closely related to Holmarc through a significant ownership stake and likely operational influence. However, this association ended in 2021 and was further solidified by Jolly Cyriac’s resignation from Greentreat Machines Private Limited in 2023.

While digging further some websites showed current MD of Greentreat Machines is one Mr.Joy George Menachery, and Additional director Eby Manakkatu cherian and i couldnt trace them back to Holmarc’s KMP’s.

Edit: Greentreat mach., Co., status is active as per MCA site.

Disclosure: Not invested. Post purely for study purposes. thanks.

Aarti · October 28, 2024, 4:09am

It seems competition is high in this business - Margins coming down. Will they be able to ramp up sales without affecting margins. whats the use of increasing sales if profits are the same - in holmarc case profit is declining.
EPS down due to dilution in IPO.

Anand_Sanyal · October 29, 2024, 6:30am

Hej @phreakv6, thanks for the write up. Definitely appears promising, right now has gone up a bit, but will definitely track this.

phreakv6 · October 30, 2024, 2:53pm

Actually competetion is very low in this business because of govt. policy. Thanks to the post above on GeM Class-I Local Supplier lead, I was able to hunt down a bit more.

Govt. has been pushing govt. funded institutions to procude through the GeM portal and also insisting preference be given to MSE/MII (Medium/Small Enterprises / Make In India certified)

MII (Make in India) certificate can be procured only if you have > 50% localisation (Class-I) or 20-50% localisation (Class-II). Some tenders even seem to reduce margin of L1 if you are a MSE/MII (like within 15% of L1) or outright reject ones without MII cert. This is what seems to be giving Holmarc the advantage

As for reason for margins being down - its because hiring when capacity wasn’t ready. Last year the company went from 215 employees to 265 employees even as they were funds to come in to put up capex. This year again this 265 number has gone up to 335 and as I had highlighted, these people are currently being trained and yet to be productive since machinery is still being installed.

Margins won’t improve in H1 either though topline should go up. Hiring has continued and from 335 its now close to 350 (though pace has slowed while waiting for commissioning of equipment)

From H2 onward we should see sequential margin improvement as part of capex will be done for H2 and from H1, FY26 productivity should go up considerably when compared to FY25/FY24. As for sales, I am certain demand is robust going by tenders and exports.

These sort of businesses require patience and cannot be played from quarter to quarter as there’s no liquidity and spreads are huge. Over time though with policy tailwind, strong exports, it will do alright.

Disc: Invested

randomquarks · November 11, 2024, 1:24am

After this thread price shot up and NSE asked for explanation from the company.

That shows two things : One, SEBI is unaware of the impact of valuepickr on SME as of now. But maybe in coming days, you can expect some regulation in discussing companies on too much detail.

Maybe someone should do a thread on this. This also raises a question about whether this platform can be used to manipulate SMEs, if some other unethical persons find out and can or should we (as a community) do something about this.

Secondly, as Bharani rightly mentioned this stock is not very liquid and has a low float. People were trying to sell at lower circuit on a number of days but not able to. This was even so in last trading session. That presents a risk to investors who wish to invest substantial funds into this as a % of their portfolio. Specially when those funds maybe needed in an emergency(or to invest in a better opportunity), such stocks won’t let you access those funds, even when you are sitting on substantial gains! So, invest only spare money and that for somewhat longer than 2-3 years.

I also noticed that a similar company named “Holmarc Slides and Controls Pvt Ltd” also is mentioned a few times on the internet. Address seems to be the same. Not sure if this is a related party or previous name of the company.

Disc: not invested yet.

Prabhat_Mohanty · November 11, 2024, 2:40am

This is not first time that price has shot up after coverage by Valuepickr, as per my observation. It has happened before, as seasoned observers know. However I was surprised to see the stock reaction. I was also surprised for the reaction, as it shows our immaturity despite knowledgeable discussion on the forum. I doubt whether investors have made any real analysis before buying this stock. In my opinion, risk reward ratio is not conducive at the highest price(it has reacted a bit after ATH).
By the way, explanation was sought by NSE and not SEBI.

phreakv6 · November 13, 2024, 12:54pm

H1 Results are out and its on expected lines.

There’s a 21% growth in topline (17 Cr) which is near the max capacity available (3 Cr/month). Margins as expected are depressed due to 1.3 Cr increase in employee costs (8.43 Cr vs 7.13 Cr) without a corresponding contribution to production as the employee count went up from 265 to 350 and these employees are being trained and did not have the machinery to work with, as mentioned in the AR. Also EPS is not comparable as the EPS in H1 FY24 is before IPO dilution. There’s still a healthy 17% PAT growth despite the drag. EBITDA growth is even better at ~35% (PAT also depressed due to higher dep since equipment is capitalised)

If we adjust for the unproductive employees, PBT would have been around 3.2 Cr and PAT around 2.4 Cr (~2x). H2 is the seasonally heavy half and looks like the Plant and Machinery is in place for a 4 Cr/month run rate.

H2 should have a topline of close to 24 Cr without a corresponding rise in employee cost which should add ~4 Cr to PBT (6 Cr PBT possible) and a possible doubling of profits YoY.

Despite the capex and WC increase (for the microscopes held in inventory), there’s still healthy cash of ~9 Cr in the BS.

There’s also healthy conversion of EBITDA to CFO of 2.27 Cr for H1 (1.85 Cr PBT and Reported PAT is 1.23 Cr)

Overall I think biggest takeaway is machinery being commissioned as per the BS so capacity constraint of the last 1 year shouldn’t continue going forward.

Also, noticed this nice catalog of all their products (They seem to have 3000+ products)

Disc: Invested

SreeM · November 14, 2024, 7:40pm

I have been following this company closely for some time, and I have used some of their products. I invested when their stock was at 80-90 levels during a market crash, which was the opportunity I was looking for. The company has established a strong brand name that reflects reliability among researchers, although this is not yet fully recognized in the market.

NEP Impact
The National Education Policy and the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) consider research contributions in their rankings. This emphasis is encouraging many private universities to increase their research spending. If you visit university websites, you can see a noticeable rise in research investments over the years. Another company benefiting from this trend is Robu (Macfos). Holmarc, known for its reliability and lower costs, is also gaining significant attention and market share out of this. This momentum is likely to continue for the next few years/decades.

R&D
Research and development in photovoltaics, energy, and bio-related fields have seen increased investment from the private sector over the years. There are not many major players (Indian) in this industry.

I foresee stable growth for the company in the coming years, especially if they focus on capacity expansion. Their geographical location is advantageous, allowing them to attract great talent at competitive rates, which enhances employer productivity. However, the current capacity is insufficient to meet the demand arising from various sectors.

phreakv6 · November 15, 2024, 5:41am

Thanks @SreeM for the pointer towards NEP. I found this very useful doc to understand govt’s thought process. Some snippets for those short on time

India’s research spend has consistently gone up over the last 10 yrs doubling from 60k Cr to 1.27 lakh Cr.

But as a percentage of GDP, it is abysmal at 0.64%. For context, the document compares R&D spends as % of GDP in Germany (3%), Japan (3.5%) and Singapore (2%). The pace of our investments in R&D have to pick up substantially to reach our aspirational target of 2% of GDP. Imagine GDP growth at 7-8% and a 3x increase driven by increased spend as % of GDP which should make the market itself grow 25% CAGR over the next decade as we catch up.

Split-up of universities

In India the govt. is the main contributor to R&D spend. The closest to us is Russia. This is the reason why DRDO, ISRO, BARC etc. are the highest spenders as of now

Over time this trend should shift where higher educational institutions (HEIs) pick up the spends and this is what the document is recommending and highlighting lot of steps for the same. It is not a coincidence that IISc, IITs and other pvt. colleges have picked up the R&D spend over the last year or so.

Research and Development Cells (RDC) are now being setup in HEIs with UGC establishing guidelines for RDCs (This doc is also worth reading)

This has been embraced by 2500 HEIs and 300 universities already as per this doc. As per NRF Bill of 2023, 50k Cr has been allocated to oversee R&D initiatives!

NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) participation has gone up over last 3 yrs. Institutions are focusing on research spends to boost their ranking in NIRF. Here’s the ranking for research institutions

What this means for a business like Holmarc?

So the keys to understanding this are the NEP 2020, R&D spends as % of GDP, R&D Cells in HEIs, NRF Bill for funding, GeM procurements, Make In India and MSE preference and follow the money.

Prabhat_Mohanty · November 15, 2024, 7:37am

I thank @phreakv6 for initiating this thread and bringing our attention to this stock. And I salute @SreeM for his discipline in entering the stock. We always talk about so many stocks doing good but never talk about price and entry level. Agreed that it is impossible to catch a stock at lowest level as it is true that you can not time the market. But it is always good to have some cushion as mentioned in Intelligent Investor and also by Peter Lynch. Risk reward ratio is very important in investment and lesser the ratio bigger the chance of a multibagger.

Pinak_Kapadia · November 15, 2024, 5:13pm

In a conversation with a friend attached to the board of a private university, he mentioned that the university gets research grant from the central govt and state govt and the money has to be spent in a year. I haven’t verified it but the sum of money seems to be quite sizeable. Here’s a blog article on the same.

The same article goes on to say that the body established will also fund private universities and fund for education vs funds for research will be separate bodies.

It should benefit Holmarc - regardless it’s a long awaited policy that could benefit India and bring some pure science research in our culture.

ricky76 · November 18, 2024, 3:00pm

Excellent initiation by Bharani and good discussion on this rather interesting micro-cap. This came under my radar too and I have a small position. The story seems overwhelmingly positive; however, it is always good to look for “disconfirming evidence” to balance our thesis. In that spirit, a few thoughts from me:

Gaining an edge is not easy: For manufacturing companies in general there are broadly only 3 ways they can gain an edge and scale up- 1. Large scale (e.g. 100 year old German chemical companies such as BASF; to get to their current scale they were highly innovative in their early years, many of the industrial processes/chemicals were invented by them over the decades), 2. Low labor cost (Bangladesh textile firms today, virtually all Chinese firms 20 years ago), 3. Technological superiority ( Nvidia, Tesla, First Solar, Astral- their CPVC compound used in pipes was a first in India)
Does Holmarc have any technological edge? There are conflicting signals here. Their gross margins are a whopping 82% for 1hfy25 and around 75% for fy 24, this suggests a high level of value add. As a benchmark, Kaynes Tech (EMS company) has a GM of around 25-30% and Data Patterns (defence equipment manufacturer) between 65%-75%. Holmarc’s employee costs as % of sales are 49% for 1Hfy25 ( bit lower at 45% for fy 24) vs 7% and 28% for kaynes and data patterns respectively.

So, just based on above metrics it would seem that Holmarc focuses on producing complex widgets and has hired well paid technical staff. However, if you search for some of their complex sounding instruments such as digital microscopes and confocal spectrometers in IndiaMart you will find dozens of small proprietary companies even from places such as Ambala and Thane manufacturing them! This doesn’t signal much technological complexity for their products. Not clear to me how Holmarc is different from these players?

Not quite advanced manufacturing : Holmarc has around 7cr (~800K USD) in PPE. For reference, just a complex CNC machine costs close to USD 300k. Is it really possible to manufacture complex scientific instruments with this level of machinery investment?

• Hard to gain an entry into the global club- The global scientific and analytical instrumentation industry is highly research driven with rapid technological change. Engineers from these companies are constantly on the move between Zurich, Cologne, New Jersey attending conferences and keeping up with the latest advances. It is hard to imagine a bunch of guys sitting in Kochi keeping up with them! Labor cost is not a big issue in this industry either. High-cost Singapore is a key med tech hub in Asia Pacific. The high technological barriers plus the trust the major brands have earned over the decades would make this a formidable market to crack in my view.

Focus on Indian research institutes: Holmarc has made some initial inroads into this market, it might do well just to focus here first rather than spreading itself thin by setting up offices globally. One of the issues with Indian small cap promoters is their unbounded ambition that far exceeds their capabilities causing many of them to burn out.
Tepid growth shows lack of clear edge: Holmarc’s growth over the years has been rather slow. Many businesses that started in the 1990s post liberalization grew rapidly if they had the right business model. These guys still have to find their rhythm. With PE firms scouting for any scalable business model, there is no lack of funding. They probably shopped themselves too before listing.
Establish investor credibility: their annual reports are quite transparent for a SME. They can go further by reporting quarterly (even if not mandatory) and conducting regular earnings calls (all e tech, another SME company is a good example to follow). They also need to put their top engineers who are designing their products in their annual reports or introduce them in earnings calls to investors, so we get more confidence about their technical prowess. Getting a proper CFO with good credentials and experience would not hurt either.

SreeM · November 18, 2024, 8:36pm

Before answering this question, I want to clarify that my opinion is personal and likely biased due to my long-standing interactions with Holmarc as a researcher. I am a researcher with over 15 years of experience and have used many products from Holmarc as well as its competitors both in India and abroad. Currently, I am based in the USA. Please keep my biases in mind.

Gaining an edge is not easy: Research facilities usually look for foreign-manufactured instruments. However, the funding for research is usually not enough to buy the foreign instruments, and they look for the best available in India, and Holmarc reaps this market (I bought many instruments from them while working in India). They have great products and after-sales services at low cost. So, the competition is not real; they are competing with low-cost vendors from India and China.

Does Holmarc have any technological edge?

Scientific instruments cost a fraction to produce. For example, a single crystal XRD machine that costs around 1.5- 2 Cr costs around 7-10 lakh in material costs, and a good CNC machine is sufficient to produce it. This is where the employees come in; these firms need well-experienced employees for production and maintenance. Maintenance is where Holmarc clearly has the upper hand over all the other vendors based in India. The geographical advantage (As mentioned in my first comment) of Holmarc is coming over here. They are based in Cochin, and the nearby CUSAT has played a major role in supplying skilled employees to them. These employees stick to them since they are paid better and have better living standards.

The guys from Ambala and Thane make some instruments or rebrand with mediocre quality. A better way to understand is to search in scientific publications. Holmarc will appear in the instrumentation sections in many high-quality publications in high-impact journals. You can have a search for the competitors and see the difference. They make great instruments with great interfaces (Brand value).

Not quite advanced manufacturing : As mentioned, these machines are not complex to manufacture. They are simple but need a lot of iterations to perfect, and the company has a knowledge pool with them that they have acquired over the years.

Hard to gain an entry into the global club - This is actually an advantage for Holmarc. They are penetrating the markets in developing countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Gulf countries etc). It is very clear that people are looking for quality at lower prices in these countries. This should be sustainable.

It is hard to imagine a bunch of guys sitting in Kochi keeping up with them! I think you should . They are very well-connected, and institutions like CUSAT, or CUSAT Photonics, have alumni spread across the world. The employee pool basically comes from similar places. But Holmarc gets it at a fraction of the cost. (Thermo fisher pays 150-200 K USD per year for such talents).

Currently, I believe the company is somewhat overvalued; however, I anticipate that it will achieve sustainable growth over the coming years. I am targeting a growth rate of 20-30%, and I am not in a rush. I value the stability that the company offers, and the dividends being paid will help cover some future costs.

I appreciate that the company has fostered a strong culture and bond among its employees, allowing it to grow steadily. Though they are well positioned to create news around and manipulate the stock prices, the management never tried to do so. I am happy to keep investing in such companies.

harsh.beria93 · November 18, 2024, 9:16pm

A webofscience search for the keyword “Holmarc” fetches 5 publications: 1 publication in 2017 and 2024, and 3 publications in 2020. Please note I have included “All Fields” i.e. kept the search very broad, and have not limited the search to “Abstract” or something specific.

To contrast this, I get 531 results when I search for the word “Picarro”, a company that manufactures laser optical spectroscopy machine to measure stable water isotopes, which is a pretty niche community and my area of research.

What should I search to find high-impact publications using Holmarc instrumentation? I apologize if I am missing something.

Disclosure: small investment in Holmarc with no transactions in last-30 days

SreeM · November 18, 2024, 9:58pm

Use google scholar instead and use keywords Holmarc or Holmarc opto. Web of science search engine usually does not scan the contents that effectively.
About high impact publications, I think you need to take a call. It depends on the field of study, publisher, impact etc. I can see many ACS, RSC publications citing Holmarc instruments. Since you have access, it is better to consult with research groups. They can talk more from their experiences about the brand and quality. Last but not least compare the cost of Picaro and Holmarc and installations in India (My data on this is based on the labs I know and it is not very standardized).

prateekv · November 18, 2024, 11:40pm

I shall give my two cents with the disclaimer that this is not my field of expertise nor have I studied the company.

I did a quick google scholar search and browsed through the list of publications using Holmarc. IMHO these are not high quality journals. Average number of citations of these papers would be in low single digits (Again, not the only indicator of quality but a useful one). However, these are also not predatory journal or conference publications.

Akash_Chowdhury · November 19, 2024, 2:10am

We have two devices in our lab(outside India). The good part is they custom make devices based on our demand which works really well. But the quality is not upto the level of international players like Fisher Scientific, Kruss, etc. But if we want some custom made devices at cheap cost with a little quality compromise Holmarc is preferred.

kenshin · November 19, 2024, 2:59pm

I was going through their products after phreak’s excellent post.

I found that many premium products under microscope have the below logos of IIT Delhi and ‘xinova’. At which point I doubted what level of research capability exists here. The lack of publication under holmarc’s name could be because those research outputs are with the other two orgs.