Infosys Limited - Are we getting a discount or no?

Some interesting findings on Infosys’ journey from IPO to now:

  • If you held on to your Infosys shares since their listing in June 1993 till now, you would have made a CAGR return of 42.1%. Your money would have multiplied 9544 times.

  • If you were extra smart and you sold out at the peak PE ratio of 322x on 8th March 2000, you would have made a CAGR of 203%. Your money would have multiplied 2326 times in just 7 years.

  • Interestingly, even if you bought the stock at the huge PE of 322x on 8th March 2000 and held on to your shares till now, you would have still made a CAGR of 7.5%.

This seems a respectable return considering that:

  • The stock was bought at an astronomical PE & it underwent a huge PE compression from 322x to 22x as on date

  • the stock did not regain the 8th March 2000 price for the next 6 ½ years (needed loads of patience)

  • the 7.5% is a compounded return unlike the simple interest you receive in a bank fixed deposit.

  • From the peak PE of March 8th, 2000, the stock fell 85% over the next 18 months. The market provided ample opportunity to buy the stock & improve your return over the 7.5% CAGR.

  • The dividend pay-out ratio increased from 15% in FY1994 to 69% in FY2019. This makes sense as large doses of free cash flows were reinvested in the initial years, in a business which was growing fast & at high RoE/RoCE.

Once growth slowed down, high pay outs provided a reasonable dividend yield (2.8% at present) and a downside cushion to the stock price.

Analysis FINAL.pdf (171.9 KB)

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