The thesis collapses, due to their inability to hold on to market share which puts long term competitive positioning of the business in doubt. IIFL Finance is likely to be the challenger that competes with Muthoot. Manappuram has an okayish gold loan franchise and a cyclical microfin business. Not an outstanding gold loan franchise and a cyclical microfin business.
Disclosure: not invested.
Slide 23 also says “However, non-gold focussed NBFCs are unable to sustain cross-cycle growth as demonstrated by historical performance”. The cross-cycle may have begun already with the potential for rising inflation and falling gold prices? Is it too early to write the thesis off? Especially since the microfin business also may be near the bottom of the cycle.
Muthoot, not degrowing QoQ tells you something. Might work out, but whenever competitive positioning is at risk. One of the biggest anti thesis pointers to sell out. Also gives a clue, when there is stress which gold franchise is able to maintain market share and not degrow. Even IIFL Finance was able to grow QoQ. Ordinary gold loan franchise+cyclical microfin business. Likely to get low valuations it gets.
That was exactly my concern because of which I was not confident in accumulating Manappuram which was not the case with Muthoot
Gold Loan Specialized NBFC probably had best Tailwinds in Industry (Balance Sheet Side) because of appreciation in Gold Prices which made it easy to grow loan book with control NPA, In such situations I was expecting Gold loan NBFC to perform far better then other competition (Despite Banks having 90% LTV) in such situations Muthoot was able to beat competition but manappuram lagged in it that actually showed me that their competitive advantage is not that strong compared to past. I personally think that focus on niche is most important characteristics gold loan NBFC should have in order to thrive excess competition which is going to come in near term from Rupeek & Banks.
One key characteristics i am very close tracking is “Loan Book and Tonnage per Branch” actually as you might be aware all these supernormal profits are because of Incremental Sales per branch YoY basis as all this incremental loans per branch are directly going in bottom line, Manappuram was lacking in this aspect compared to Muthoot (I dont know why they are not able leverage existing branches like Muthoot despite significant brand awareness, if someone can throw some light on it will be really helpful)
If you look beyond numbers, Muthoot management has given clear indication that they will reducing branches in south and they are consolidating branches (25% of loan book is from south where there are 45% of total branches) consider if branches starts consolidating which is likely to be the case then kind of operating leverage that can play in them.
Manappuram is also really interesting bet even if they find it difficult to grow loan book in near term, all potential downfalls are compensated with attractive valuations, If Manappuram can increase their per branch efficiency (Brand is already available to do it) and micro finance division well it has potential to become well diversified and moated NBFC and even if that doesn’t play out current valuations wont put big dent on principal capital. I will like to observe Manappuram for now and add as business quality becomes better and more competitive in Industry (Returns are made when ugly duckiling turns into a Swan) and @Worldlywiseinvestors congrats on 100K of SOIC keep growing and keep educating Investor.
Disclosure: Please do your own due diligence (Biased & Invested in Muthoot) and I am not SEBI Register Advisor
Manappuram has grown its gold AUM at CAGR 15% over last 4 years and Muthoot by 17%. Muthoot has much better operational efficiency. Manappuram has the better MFI. Both have same cost of borrowing and similar liability mix. Manappuram has less risky assets due to nature of their product (short term). This means that stress is identified on their PnL much before it happens for Muthoot (hence disparity in Q1 metrics). Muthoot gets the chance to average them out over the entire year and has to deal with lesser auction/ unit AUM. But auction as far as I understand has never been a problem for either. And as Manappuram MD said, 80% of customers whose gold is auctioned do come back for more loans due to transparency. From branding point of view, both do extensive branding with expensive stars, both regional and national.
A little scuttlebutt: My town houses both. I’ve talked to a few rice traders who take some loan to buy rice during harvest from farmers. They say they take loan from whoever they feel like. Little difference in experience and taking loan from them is extremely easy. Before they took loan from local lenders (sahukar) at Rs 6000 rupees for every Rs 5000 every 2 months.
These factor according to me does not warrant almost double valuations for Muthoot. Either Manappuram is cheap and Muthoot is fairly price or Muthoot is expensive and Manappuram is fairly priced.
Disclosure: Invested
While AUM (tonnage) for Muthoot dropped by ~3% from FY2020 to FY2021, manappuram AUM(tonnage) dropped by ~10% for the same period. Now the questions are:
Both are partially true in my opinion. Muthoot auctions after 1 yr of NPA and Manappuram after 3 months. So an maximum non performing tenure for Muthoot is 2 year and Manappuram is 6 month which is 1/4th of Muthoot. This means that in Muthoot customer gets longer time to save her gold. One may think that this is sentimentally more attractive but on the other hand NPA is very less. So for majority of customers , it may be the other way round whereby they do not want to collateralize their gold for long and opt for short tenure loan. I must say these opposing arguments have create not very much growth differential between the two companies and both are doing pretty well without being compelled to change their strategy.
For me, if Muthoot and Manappuram have same valuations, I’ll choose Muthoot because it has operating leverage. Otherwise there’s not much to choose. Manappuram is a little safer from credit quality conservatism point of view plus their MFI business is better.
MANAPPURAM Stock | Manappuram Finance Ltd Q1 FY22 Earnings Concall
VP Nandkumar confident of 10-15% growth in gold loan and 20%CAGR on consolidated basis with 20%ROE
MIX REPORTS BY ANALYST POST Q1 RESULT 10 Aug 2021
Motilal - BUY TP 220
Arihant - Hold TP -201
Brokerage firm Motilal Oswal Financial Services has maintained a buy call on the stock after the Q1 numbers, with a target price of Rs 220.It is poised for a decent consolidated AUM CAGR of nearly 13 percent over FY21–24E," Motilal Oswal said.
Arihant Capital has downgraded the stock to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ with a revised target price of Rs 201 from Rs 197 earlier, based on 1.6 times FY23E P/ABV.
Positive things are : clean management ,demand picking up ,risk management good ,good ROE ,good dividend yield ,management identified gaps and working on them,slow and steady approach, valuation not expensive
Negative things are : growth slowing ,competition ,gold price fluctuations ,covid
disc : invested
I believe the best days for Manappuram are behind. The fact that non-gold book is now ~30% of its AUM shows that gorwht in its core business is slowing, and that was vindicated by a sharp fall in the gold tonnage. The competition in gold lending is heating up, and many SFBs and small Banks (like CUB, Federal) are pursuing it. Given their cheap cost, it would pressurize the NIMs.
Moreover, I have some doubts in their MFI and Affordable Housing book. The entire industry has seen sharp growth in NPAs, barring Manappura. There could be some element of evergreening. That’s just my opinion, and I could be wrong. But one thing is clear Manappuram is steering from gold loans and venturing into segments where it was absent hitherto… So, if I want to play those segments I would bet on compaines who are expert in the domain, and if I wnt to play gold I would turn to Muthoot. So, I believe Manappuram is at a point of no where at the moment.
Alternative is as we go near main event of when US rates rises then Gold prices will fall. So this reduced goal loan portfolio can act as blessing in disguise. Gold prices are already under pressure. Management has good experience in gold loan and still they are not aggressive and not defending their gold loan turf.
Disc: Not invested, these are my views only.
Key takeaways from Manappuram Finance concall Q1FY22, would like to get insights from other participants
With almost 30 trillion in debt. How will US service the debt in a high interest scenario. Also inflation is very high (5%)which should aid gold prices. Most real assets including gold are cheap. Ofcourse with yields touching 1.2℅ gold should be at 2000$ . I think its a matter of time and price should catch up after 1 yr underperformance.
There is huge unorganised gold loan market in India .Market is worried that other NBFCs and banks will take Manappuram’s share .Or may be everyone will take some share from unorganised sector and all will grow. I feel there is enough pie for everyone with focussed approach .So all those with focused approach will grow.But can everyone maintain the focussed approach .History tells us no .Why ? I think the main reason is huge operational issue .Not a easy business to grow steadily .Only few like manappuram and muthoot have succeeded.Other players come during boom and disappear during bear phase .But many feel this is a different time and things will change .Probably not ,but I may be wrong .
Both are growing in almost some rate with few small differences over long timeframe.
Coming to valuations ,current valuations with PE <8 and P/BV < 2 means market is assuming more bad is coming .Some are even saying that manappuram thesis/business has collapsed .But will it happen? Thats where we have two groups ,one assuming muthoot will keep growing and manappuram keep degrowing/slow growing .Hard to digest this as both businesses have almost same model of convenience ,i.e u get loan instantaneously with trust and reliability .One group is happy to pay double premium to Muthoot and other sticking to comfortable manappuram valuations.I belong to later group .Lets see …
Anyhow such polarised views keep market interesting and keep creating opportunities on both sides
Does anybody have any insights on the threat of online gold lenders like Rupeek to the Manappuram and Muthoot? Doorstep distribution and minimal turn around time are both part of Manappuram.
Disc: Not invested, not any recommendation.
Thanks @ChaitanyaC for posting the Finshots article, I was about to post the same when I read few days back but got some other work 
So IMO, the reason why its trading at double premium is :
Muthoot is trading double the premium of Manappuram is because Muthoot is rather taking a conservative approach and consistently delivering it. Whereas Manappuram is aggressive and their plans are often disrupted by the external factors like in 2013 and 2020 covid crisis as mentioned in the above article especially refer the Manappuram profits hugely came because of auction. But they constantly agile and trying to stay competitive is really good.
Obviously both are good companies for long term. But for myself, I can be aggressive on any other sector but particularly when it comes to Banking and NBFC space I am slightly conservative. So When NBFC sector already have an issue of loans being not repaid, conservative investors happy to pay double premium to Muthoot.
So Manappuram fanboys don’t come and post 100 articles and PPTs to bash me saying that its the best. I am not saying or talking about which is best or worst.
Muthoot (for conservative investors) , Manappuram is for aggressive Investors. Period.
For more about Gold loan Industry and their comparison, I found this blog is really helpful.
https://soic.in/blog-description/playersingoldindustry
Then coming to @Ashutosh_Sancheti question regarding Rupeek :
The document posted by @Vinay_T_M was really helpful.
Page No: 6 last question have the answer for you.
Finally for the above Business Standard article,
UBS tells to “get out” but in the last para of the article “Others are more optimistic and Goldman Sachs Increased the Target” 
But this newspaper guys wants to panic you with the negative title.
So “News” and “Noise” are 2 different things where an Investor need to understand which needs to ignored and which needs attention. – Said by “Who knows” 
So for long term investors of Muthoot or Manappuram, we can classify as “Noise”
Just read this how much gold delivered since Independence. Though I prefer Equity over Gold, I have 5-10% for hedging purpose.
In my view, Rupeek will garner some market share for sure. However, for Mutooth/Manapurram, it will not be a rocket science to aggressively compete with Rupeek on door delivery model.
One more issue I see with Rupeek is, it has to again depend on banks for the last mile connectivity with the customer. How practical/fast it is?
Disclosure: Tracking. Not invested.
I think valuations will fluctuate and some years muthoot gets premium and few years Manappuram will get premium .This is because of fluctuations in their growth in short term but it will even out over long term .Thats how i see and I may be wrong .
And most likely eventually both will get rerated for established well run NBFCs
I will wait another year to see change in valuation premium
