Hey Atul, The company has invested into many PMS as well. Acquisition intimations are all direct investments - may be the sales are on PMS front and not separately reported.
We will need to check from BS disclosures if any direct holding has been sold (and not reported).
Disclosure: Not invested.
Atul Sir,
I was invested in the company once upon a time.
As minority shareholders, weâre ignored. We usually look for promoters who align with our interests. USUALLY f someone owns a significant stake in the company, it gives us a sense of protection. BUT in this case, it seems we need to adjust our expectations.
Here, the promoters appear to see more potential investing in stocks. Why? Probably because making money in the real world, especially under their current circumstances, is very challenging.
If the company turns into something like a holding company, the market will likely treat it as such and value it accordingly. In fact, it seems the market already views it as just another investment company. Normally, from what little I know, investment companies come at lower valuations.
For this reason, as small investors, weâre now stuck with a company that no longer aligns with our protection. Itâs worth noting that many large investors may not be in the company because the company has strayed from its original purpose. I canât help but wonder if this is okay under government rules but not sure.
Anyway, everyday we are making the decision to stay or not, in some cases our investment will behave like an value trap for sometime, we have that hope we are smarter then others and getting it very very cheap, maybe we are.
Just a small, struggling investor here, hoping for that 1000-bagger someday! 
Not a registered advisorâjust sharing my thoughts.
doesnât matter, profits are not going to go towards core business. You can buy stocks from the market yourself you donât need them to do that
Recent announcement of the company to raise/invest up to 5000cr seems to be something brewing in the company. Although, I am not sure what it is, bet can be part of expansion into real estate sector as they have acquired some land near NCR by buying a company and taking over its debt.
Seems someone in the management heard the hue and cry of retail investors and they offered a pittance Rs 3 interim dividend.
Most of the bets that looked juicy when markets were hot now seems to be biting dust like HAL investment at 4900 now at 3500, Electro stat invested at 200+ now at 100.. I can quote many more but whatâs the point. Happy investing
While I agree the management does not care about shareholders. I cannot seem to find any substantial purchases of land in the cash flow statement.I would appreciate it if you can share a bit of details.
Can anyone throw light on the purchase price of nse unlisted shares by Maithan?
As per my research, last year back when the purchase was made, the price was hovering near 1300 and today its around 1625 so 500 cr worth shares of Nse unlisted must have grown by 25% to 625 cr
Maithan Alloys is an interesting company - net-debt free, with approx. 2100 Cr. of cash + short term investments. It has a market cap of 2,861 Cr., that means it has an enterprise value of 761 Cr.
It earned 355 crore PAT last year, so earnings yield (PAT/EV) = 46% (corresponds to PE of 2.14)! Even though earnings are very cyclical, it is ridiculously cheap. Even in their âworstâ earnings year in the last 5 years (FY20), net profit was 222 Cr (29% earnings yield)
Some potential reasons that the company is trading so cheaply
Any other red flags Iâve missed?
see page 203 for balance sheet & page 223 onwards for investment holdings: https://www.maithanalloys.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2023-24.pdf
Latest quarterly report (page 8 has consolidated earnings): https://www.maithanalloys.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Oct-Dec-Q3.pdf
Disc.: Invested a small amount - 1% of portfolio, but very confused by this company, haha.
Cheers,
Sharad
OpenSourceInvestor
This stock came to my attention after news that Warren Buffett had stepped down from Berkshire last week to join as head of Treasury in Maithan Alloys.
The capital allocation of Maithan alloys seems to be hotly contested however it feels myopic.
I initially detested this policy till I realised that it was stemming from my insecurity about my inability to outperform Maithanâs treasury operations.
The timeline the way I see it is:
mess up operations big time in 2008.
swear to take the 20000ft view all the time
patience and prudence for a decade - reduce debt, try to install renewables to reduce costs etc but nothing much else
incessant pressure by shareholders
cave in: acquire Impex out of NCLT
have to shutdown impex because of costs, another cyclical downturn
have an identity crisis?
Theyâve been invested in instruments on the lower end of the risk spectrum(arb MFs, short duration debt MFs, some debentures) for the longest duration till their failure in impex coinciding with the cyclical downturn in FY23.
A sudden huge spike in direct equity shareholding in FY24.
A 500cr investment in unlisted(albeit relatively less illiquid) stock a la NSE.
Diversifying into real estate with the acquisition of Eloise builders for 73cr and the preceding amendment to the object clause of the articles of association adding real estate to it.
The clear trend is the progressive shift towards the longer duration side of the spectrum however, I believe that this is a simple reflection of managementâs belief that core expansion opportunities might not exist over the medium term outside of Maithan Ferrous. It is much less likely FOMO driven.
The recent approval for 500cr transactions with Maithan ferrous means that its runway will be long enough to not require cash in the near term.
The real estate operation seems to be a small part of net worth as of now.
FY24 portfolio of Maithan:
The market cap distribution doesnât seem too risky
thereâs ofcourse the near 500cr NSE acquisition in FY24
Acquisitions in FY25:
A lot of the stocks in the portfolio seem to be in sectors where the management may possess an edge due to linkages to their operations.(eg. most of the recent buys are of PFC)
Management would ofcourse refrain from conducting concalls because why would they want to sit through one hour of âanalystsâ asking why capital hasnât been returned to the shareholders when business has already been a headache?
They hold at least 75% so arenât they shareholders too, wanting to enjoy the wealth effect and the immense clout that comes with it?
Pretty funny that management who owns 75% and has remuneration including a profit-linked component is accused of not being aligned. If not this, how does alignment look like?
Dividends are taxed at a very high rate for them. So are buybacks. They are at the shareholding cap so they canât afford to not participate.
Theyâve not tried the classic looting methods like huge âcapexâ, related party txns etc. With their voting power, they can get majority/supermajority requiring resolutions passed easily.
The only option they have is to delist or divest their entire holding but since theyâve not done it, it means one thing.
their ultimate goal is to maximise the market capitalisation of Maithan Alloys Limited by maximizing FCF/share and they believe that they can do it
As for press releases or presentations, there hasnât been any significant developments in the business to address
âŚUNTIL RECENTLY
Margins right now are at the threshold where the management claims that the competitors would be facing losses at.
Canât find any major news about the ferro manganese industry other than that the Inner Mongolia region where the Ferro Manganese production is concentrated within China had a plan to get at least 60% of their energy from green sources in 2024 but were facing challenges due to the geographic location not being favorable for renewables like Wind.
By May 2019, the companyâs management explicitly stated that most of their exports are going into Asia because the price pressure in the developed countries is significant. They further elaborated that markets like Europe and USA are ânot natural customersâ because most steel mills in the USA are located deep inside the country, creating a logistic disadvantage. This strategic shift out of stagnant Europe into growing Asia happened âjust after Lehman Brothersâ
But, Exports to the USA have skyrocketed all of a sudden. Does that mean closure in capacities elsewhere? China does not seem to be a major supplier to the US.
What changed? Iâm not sure but now is the time to actually provide an investor presentation.
Exports to the USA for 4Q25(via eximpedia):
Overall exports for 4Q25:
Other than the mysterious first name(degen Trafigura gambler?), the other clients are clearly Rand Alloys and Thysenkrupp
Historical contribution of exports to Maithanâs revenue:
| FY | Revenue from outside India (Cr) | Revenue from outside India as a % of overall revenue | Export revenue growth YoY in % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-11 (Standalone) | 254.87 | 42.88% | 45.32% | |
| 2011-12 (Consolidated Geo) | 208.75 | 34.88% | ||
| 2012-13 (Consolidated Geo) | 364.28 | 38.26% | 74.55% | |
| 2013-14 (Consolidated Geo) | 364.28 | 37.86% | 0.00% | |
| 2014-15 (Consolidated Geo) | 275.36 | 31.12% | -24.35% | |
| 2015-16 (Consolidated Geo) | 556.25 | 48.34% | 102.08% | |
| 2016-17 (Consolidated Geo) | 673.94 | 49.38% | 21.16% | |
| 2017-18 (Consolidated Geo) | 1020.59 | 55.49% | 51.45% | |
| 2018-19 (Consolidated Geo) | 1058.98 | 54.99% | 3.76% | |
| 2019-20 (Consolidated Geo) | 976.13 | 55.11% | -7.82% | |
| 2020-21 (Consolidated Geo) | 941.93 | 59.04% | -3.50% | |
| 2021-22 (Consolidated Geo) | 2226.34 | 75.31% | 136.35% | |
| 2022-23 (Consolidated Geo) | 2073.89 | 72.09% | -6.85% | |
| 2023-24 (Consolidated Geo) | 960.80 | 55.62% | -53.68% |
One weird side note I noticed is that FY14âs revenue from outside India is the exact same as that of FY13
So, does this mark the bottom of the cycle from which Maithan emerges as a stronger? Whatâs the deal with the US?
I donât know. But, my contrarian take is that the massive shift in capital allocation doesnât meaningfully negatively affect the companyâs long term value or focus.
Infact, it is one of the best directions a commodity company can take(lesser of the evils) and hence the company should deserve a higher valuation than before
I will be watching the scale of the RE operation/developments in Maithan ferrous and AXL/US exports. Iâve emailed the management regarding these points and hope they write back. Ideally, time to give an investor update for the first time in a while.
Disclosure: Long and most probably wrong
Management replied that they canât answer any questions during the current silence period.
Given the experience of other forum members failing to get answers from the management too, weâre going to have to speculate on how investments might have been handled by looking elsewhere
Maithan Ferrousâs ownership structure is such that Maithan Alloys owns 80%. The second and third largest shareholders owning 8% and 7% respectively belong to the CEO Mr. Aditya Mishra who also runs SHREE AMBEY ISPAT PRIVATE LIMITED( NIC code is 271 (which is part of its CIN). As per the NIC code, it is inolved in Manufacture of Basic Iron & Steel)
Maithan owns 75% of AXL. There are two other entities owning over 5%. While one of the entitiesâ possible links to the promoter/other business groups is unclear, the other entity is linked to the Adventz group who has an extensive empire spanning multiple commodities(Zuari, Paradeep, Chambal, Mangalore Fert,Texmaco etc are the listed ones and they have unlisted entities too)
The above is as of March 2024. I requested the management for the full shareholding pattern but to no avail.
Part of the claim about how they handle human capital is seconded by the recent resignation letter of one of the employees
Given all this, one can speculate with a pretty strong probability that
A. The management has the proper team in place for treasury and/or
B. They believe they know what theyâre doing with the money
If itâs just B., I think itâs very unlikely for that to have been a result of irrational exuberance since they consistently remind themselves of their mess in 2008 in their core ops.
At the current valuation, the odds are tremendously in favor of people who take this view.
I also fully understand the marketâs minimum demand from the management to show a long enough track record in investing before valuing them appropriately
