Hello Harsh… Would you be able to advise on the rationale for Godfrey Phillips?
I was earlier invested in this company for their 24/7 convenience stores which could be a big thing…
However when I learn about the management and the absconding Nirav Modi and family were promoters, I sold it entirely.
I would like to know how much wieghtage would you put on management and governance?
Also would appreciate the rationale for Jagran Prakashan, my understanding is that its a dying business and its terminal value is something I cannot evaluate…
Thanks in advance
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Hi Harsh, About Chamanlal thesis, can you please share the source/pointers indicating below mentioned management intentions
With regards to sales growth
But on screener, I noticed the sales growth not being around 50% YoY. Did you mean the total sales growth from 2014 to 2018?
Irrespective of the clarification above points, a company with ~680 Cr market cap, 258 Cr cash in hands, better return ratios than industry leader (due to asset light business model) available at below 8 PE with positive industry tailwinds (clearly indicated by KRBL management in their media interactions and concalls) - A clear opportunity in terms of risk-reward.
Thanks
-Manohar
1 Like
Godfrey Phillips’ promoter is not Nirav Modi. For understanding family dynamics, please go through the Godfrey thread.
If you look at volume nos of Jagran or DB Corp, you will realize that this business will be here for atleast the next 5-10 years. And because people do not want to look at these ideas, pricing is very attractive. As a result, my own IRRs in both have been in excess of 30%, despite all kinds of narratives against newspaper cos. I am happy taking these kinds of bets again and again.
No I meant the sales growth in years 2014 and 2018 (look at screenshot below).
I agree!
1 Like
Hey Harsh,
I was looking at this company today,
Business is growing at high rate, but I see a problem with it.
- Demand of working capital can not be entirely fulfilled through internal accruals and there is limited scope to increase debt as Interest coverage ratio is low, so equity dilution is the way going forward I think.
- Dividend shall go to zero as company will not really have any free money to distribute.
- Lots of other income come from gov. schemes and FX, if any changes happen to that then business valuations may come down overnight. Possibility is low, but it is still a risk. FX can vary.
Its a good thing that you allocated just 1%.
Would like to know your views.
3 Likes
Hi Harsh,
May I dare to ask if this performance of yours is before or after taxes, fees and frictional costs?
Regards,
M
As of today, I have switched out of Shri Jagdamba Polymers and utilized the proceeds to buy more shares of Stylam. As a result, Stylam’s position size increases to 4% in the model portfolio.
The reason for exiting Shri Jagdamba is that they will likely be adversely impacted from the current US real estate downcycle. Also, their capex is still sometime away. On the other hand, Stylam has multiple earnings driver (export + domestic + margin improvement). I find the risk reward more interesting in Stylam, and hence the switch. Cash stays at zero.
Core compounder (40%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| I T C Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd. | 4.00% |
| NESCO Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Eris Lifesciences Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Ajanta Pharmaceuticals Ltd. | 4.00% |
| HDFC Asset Management Company Ltd | 4.00% |
| Aegis Logistics Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Gufic Biosciences | 4.00% |
| HDFC Bank Ltd. | 2.00% |
| PI Industries Ltd. | 2.00% |
| LINCOLN PHARMACEUTICALS LTD. | 2.00% |
| Godfrey Phillips | 2.00% |
Cyclical (50%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Kolte-Patil Developers Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Sharda Cropchem Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Avanti Feeds Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd | 4.00% |
| Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Amara Raja Batteries Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Chaman Lal Setia Exp | 4.00% |
| Stylam Industries Limited | 4.00% |
| Ashiana Housing Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Ashok Leyland Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Heranba Industries | 2.00% |
| Kaveri Seed Company Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Control Print Limited | 2.00% |
| Sundaram Finance Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Time Technoplast Ltd. | 2.00% |
| RACL Geartech Ltd | 2.00% |
| Manappuram Finance Ltd. | 2.00% |
Turnaround (4%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Punjab Chem. & Corp | 4.00% |
Deep value (6%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Geekay Wires | 1.00% |
| Jagran Prakashan Ltd. | 1.00% |
| D.B.Corp Ltd. | 1.00% |
| Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd. | 1.00% |
| Modison Metals | 1.00% |
| Suyog Telematics | 1.00% |
These are valid points and I agree with most of them. However, the way I approach microcaps is slightly different. If there is anything attractive that I find available at a very small market cap, I do some basic work and build a small position if things look reasonable. The idea is not to have a rigorous checklist, otherwise it becomes very hard to buy anything at such a small market cap. In the past few years, this approach has worked out very well for me.
Coming to Geekay, I was attracted by growth and reasonable dividends. While the core business is not great as reflected in mid teens ROCEs, the high working capital and poor cashflow generation is due to very low payables (and not high receivable days). That means, sales are probably not fictitious. Also, we can verify their sales with export data.
Low payable days is generally a strategy to get cash discounts, resulting in higher margins. However, if they keep growing like this, they will need to do equity dilution. Lets see how this plays out.
All the records that I share is pre frictional costs and also pre dividends. Actually, my dividend yield is much higher than the index, as I keep 10-20% of my portfolio in high dividend yield cos. As a result, dividends more than pay the frictional costs.
14 Likes
Hi Harsh bhai, could you please share your reasoning behind choosing PI over UPL? Valuation wise does UPL look a better option over PI if I take fresh entry in any one of them?
I have gone through your analysis on Punjab Chemical and UPL is one of their major clients, so if I have to shortlist two stocks from Agrochem space what would those be, Upl,PI or Punjab Chemical considering current valuation?
PI is a very old position, it has continued growing over time and has shown clear leadership in their core business. Over time, I have reduced my position size due to higher valuations. However, I have not sold out fully as growth is still very high and I want to be more measured in selling. UPL is in a very different lifecycle as its a mature company and can have limited growth. Given their size, they have done tremendously well to still keep growing. None of their global peers grow at these rates.
This being said, I think a better way to play UPL growth story is to buy Indian vendors that cater to UPL, as their individual earnings growth will be much higher. A lot of agchem growth observed in Indian companies is due to UPL outsourcing more volumes to these players. Hope this clarifies my thought process.
16 Likes
As of today, I have switched out of Heranba and replaced it with Caplin Point Laboratories. Cash remains zero.
Heranba reported a howler in this quarter which was due to pricing pressure in pyrethroids. We have gone through a very good agchem cycle in past few years, so mean reversion is likely to occur. In my experience, when earnings start dropping at such rates, it takes quite sometime for things to fall in place. With this in mind and due to many more available opportunities, I booked my losses despite valuations being very cheap.
Caplin Point has been one of the most consistent growth companies over the last decade. In the past few years, they have started building their US business which is scaling rapidly. One of the most common playbook to build US generic business is to get into products with small market size, some niche and grab large market shares. In the past few years, this playbook has been successfully implemented by Ajanta Pharma and Unichem Lab. With this strategy, companies scale to $100mn annual run rate in 3-5 years. Caplin is adopting the same playbook, lets see how well they can execute. Its available at 15x PE and I expect earnings to grow at 15%+ over the medium term. Historically, they have grown earnings at 25%+.
Other than this, I am building positions in RKEC projects and Propequity. Once I have built my positions, I will add them to the model portfolio. Currently, I am facing the problem of too many opportunities, its hard to decide what to sell.
Core compounder (42%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| I T C Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd. | 4.00% |
| NESCO Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Eris Lifesciences Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Ajanta Pharmaceuticals Ltd. | 4.00% |
| HDFC Asset Management Company Ltd | 4.00% |
| Aegis Logistics Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Gufic Biosciences | 4.00% |
| HDFC Bank Ltd. | 2.00% |
| PI Industries Ltd. | 2.00% |
| LINCOLN PHARMACEUTICALS LTD. | 2.00% |
| Godfrey Phillips | 2.00% |
| Caplin Point Laboratories Ltd. | 2.00% |
Cyclical (48%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Kolte-Patil Developers Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Sharda Cropchem Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Avanti Feeds Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd | 4.00% |
| Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Amara Raja Batteries Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Chaman Lal Setia Exp | 4.00% |
| Stylam Industries Limited | 4.00% |
| Ashiana Housing Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Ashok Leyland Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Kaveri Seed Company Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Control Print Limited | 2.00% |
| Sundaram Finance Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Time Technoplast Ltd. | 2.00% |
| RACL Geartech Ltd | 2.00% |
| Manappuram Finance Ltd. | 2.00% |
Turnaround (4%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Punjab Chem. & Corp | 4.00% |
Deep value (6%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Geekay Wires | 1.00% |
| Jagran Prakashan Ltd. | 1.00% |
| D.B.Corp Ltd. | 1.00% |
| Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd. | 1.00% |
| Modison Metals | 1.00% |
| Suyog Telematics | 1.00% |
14 Likes
@harsh.beria93 Do you track Krsnaa Diagnostics. I think that might fall in your (shallow?) value bucket. You might think of replacing Ashok Leylands with this. Pardon, I don’t track Ashok much but seems to be at near peak valuations. Thanks.
1 Like
Have you thought of adding grasim inds to your portfolio?
Modison Metals is facing huge margin pressure, with EBITDA margin dropping from 8% to 1% mostly due to inflation in raw material prices.
Where do you see the company stand in next 1-2 years and would they be able to grow in the same manner as they used to from 2020-22.
Thanks for the suggestion, Ashok Leyland is going through a cyclical uptick and I dont think its appropriately valued. About Krsnaa, @Chins has done amazing work and has kept sharing his thesis around the company. I haven’t invested in it because I dont feel comfortable buying at 17x earnings when there are so many opportunities available at cheaper multiples, and growing at similar rates. One such co is Caplin Point where again @Chins has done amazing work!
I havent done much work on cement cos. I actually dont get why cement cos trade at a premium vs other commodity cos given they dont have higher growth rate or better ROCE. Its just wrong in my opinion.
Hard to tell, I have also been surprised that they have been struggling with margins despite having a strong competitive position. Even Care downgraded their rating due to this reason.
However, I have seen problems like these persisting for a few quarters in a lot of small cos and then they get resolved. The idea is to buy at very cheap multiples in expectation for a mean reversion. Sometimes, it happens quickly and other times it takes more time. Lets see what happens in Modison.
11 Likes
As of today, I switched out of Godfrey Phillips and added Transpek to the model portfolio. Godfrey trade played out very well, with market recognizing change in operating margins and resumption of growth in tobacco. While margin benefit is likely permanent in nature, the huge jump in revenue growth came because of tobacco exports which has now normalized. Although valuations are not demanding in Godfrey, I prefer playing tobacco sector with ITC as they have multiple value drivers.
Transpek has got back to pre-covid revenue run rate in their core business and are now getting more aggressive in growth, as shown in launch of five new products this fiscal. Margins have also shown a clear revival trend, in good times Transpek can do 20% EBITDA margins.
In the last concall, Transpek management guided that they have clear order visibility for CY23 and are working on reaching 1000 cr. of sales in a couple of years. At 20% EBITDA margin, this can translate into 200 cr. EBITDA and potential enterprise value of 2000 cr. (basically a doubler with good visibility).
I like the setup where a conservative management becomes more aggressive in pursuing growth (another e.g. is Sundaram Finance). Lets see how Transpek works out. Updated portfolio is below and cash stays at zero.
Core compounder (40%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| I T C Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd. | 4.00% |
| NESCO Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Eris Lifesciences Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Ajanta Pharmaceuticals Ltd. | 4.00% |
| HDFC Asset Management Company Ltd | 4.00% |
| Aegis Logistics Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Gufic Biosciences | 4.00% |
| HDFC Bank Ltd. | 2.00% |
| PI Industries Ltd. | 2.00% |
| LINCOLN PHARMACEUTICALS LTD. | 2.00% |
| Caplin Point Laboratories Ltd. | 2.00% |
Cyclical (50%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Kolte-Patil Developers Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Sharda Cropchem Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Avanti Feeds Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd | 4.00% |
| Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Amara Raja Batteries Ltd. | 4.00% |
| Chaman Lal Setia Exp | 4.00% |
| Stylam Industries Limited | 4.00% |
| Ashiana Housing Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Ashok Leyland Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Kaveri Seed Company Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Control Print Limited | 2.00% |
| Sundaram Finance Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Time Technoplast Ltd. | 2.00% |
| RACL Geartech Ltd | 2.00% |
| Manappuram Finance Ltd. | 2.00% |
| Transpek Industry Ltd. | 2.00% |
Turnaround (4%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Punjab Chem. & Corp | 4.00% |
Deep value (6%)
| Companies | Weightage |
|---|---|
| Geekay Wires | 1.00% |
| Jagran Prakashan Ltd. | 1.00% |
| D.B.Corp Ltd. | 1.00% |
| Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd. | 1.00% |
| Modison Metals | 1.00% |
| Suyog Telematics | 1.00% |
15 Likes
Hi Harsh,
You put in so much effort to find out good companies.Would not it make sense to have higher allocation to the ones with higher conviction and reap higher benefit. A 2% may not move the needle much is what I assume
2 Likes
Extremely well defined approach.
Also, I like the fact that, your allocation is same for all stocks with only 2 levels i.e. 4% and 2%. This gives arise to Equal Weight Portfolio which I believe is more stable and may give better returns. Most of us have tendency to allocate more weight to high conviction, highly undervalued stocks but often end up generating inferior returns as Mr. Market does not move the stocks up or down based on our convictions. Mr. Market does opposite things many time.
I am sure that, you might have thought about increasing allocation levels to 5% as well.
I will like to know your rationale behind only 4% weight. May be it is due to high no. of stocks which you like to own.
5 Likes
While calculating net return, most of us ingore dividend. Since the benchmark considered is also without dividend (Sensex/Nifty or any other index), and dividend yield being generally 1-2% for sensex and most of portfolio, we tend to ignore importance of Dividend. However, since I expect most of us to remain in stock market for 2-3 decades and more (depending on age and ability to digest market volatility and survive), the dividend is real return genetor in portfolio over 20 years+ horizon.
For instance, Sensex (1979=100) with Dividend yield estimated by me from various data on every March end, without Dividend would have been 58,568 as on 31 March 2022. However, if we have assume dividend from Sensex being reinvested, the closing value would have increased to 137,347 as on 31 March 2022.
My calulcation for very long term, almost century for Indian stock market, as on 31-3-1928 are estimated to be 40.98 as on 31-3-1928. (I have applied various periods RBI variable yield securities index and back calculated sensex value from 1979 being 100), increases to 58,568 as on 31 March 2022. However, with assuptions of dividend being reinvested, the Value of portfolio increases to 800,908 with dividend as on 31 March 2022. So ignoring dividend may not see any major impact on 1-2-3-5-10 years horizon. However, as period increases, Dividend contribution to portfolio return is much higher than capital appreciation in my limited understanding.
Some old working on this subject are avialble on this link
17 Likes
Hi Dhiraj,
Thank you for this wonderful comment and a constant reminder of long term thinking. I love your work on extracting longer records for so many companies, I just hope you can get more time to keep sharing this kind of work for larger number of securities. I have found them very useful and have used them a lot for my own analysis 
Coming to dividends, no other person has ever asked me about it or suggested me to maintain a record. Over past 5-years, my dividends have grown at a very meaningful rate (starting capital size was also very small). My longer term objective is to ensure that annual dividends exceed my net income.
| Year | Dividends received (base normalized to 100) |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 100.00 |
| 2019 | 383.79 |
| 2020 | 1’151.05 |
| 2021 | 1’729.63 |
| 2022 | 2’349.01 |
No scientific reasoning behind it, there are so many stocks having similar risk reward that I find it easier to maintain a certain allocation and worry more about finding new opportunities. At this stage of my life, I am much more interested in broadening my investing universe than worrying too much about exact allocations.
10 Likes
Congrats Harsh! Your thread is an absolute delight to follow. The clarity in your thought process and honesty in recording the results is amazing.
I have few questions just to pick your thought process:
1)How do you stay clear of those hot stocks (stocks with stories going round and round and prices move up and up till the sanity returns). Eg. API stocks after covid telling India is going to eat China’s market, Auto Tier 2 stocks which are sold as EV plays, Commodity chemical stocks sold as once in a lifetime capex+export substitution stories etc.,
2)I can see low P/E is a key criteria in your stock selection. Do you have any absolute value only below which you’ll buy or any range?
3)50% in cyclicals and how do you try to stay on top of the cycle. I understand you intend to get in lower end of the cycle and sell at peak. But how do you track? Do you have a source tracker of exports, Commodity prices, Chemical prices etc., How often do you check? Any entry and exit criteria?
3 Likes
Hi Srini,
Thank you for your kind words.
I will invert the question and ask if you know of any investor who has consistently outperformed the market by buying whats flavor of the season? Most successful investors I know of are either very early in catching the growth cycle or have made money by investing through despair. You dont need to answer me, but I will request you to think deeply about this.
For well discovered companies (like ITC, HDFC bank, etc.), I see what valuation bands a company has traded in its past and try to buy towards the lower end of the band (more details below)
For undiscovered stocks or very small companies, I try to buy at <10x normalized earnings. I almost never pay >15x for small companies, unless I am very confident of the business quality and growth profile.
I am often not on top of the business or the market cycle. When I am buying, its almost guaranteed that there will be few brokerage reports and most of my work focuses on quality of balance sheet (rather than profit & loss statement). During upcycle, there is a lot of coverage around the stock and valuations are much higher than long term averages. Although, exiting just based on valuations implies that I will miss some part of the upside, its generally not a problem as there are often ample available opportunities. Over the past few years I have worked a lot on improving my selling skills (see some examples below).
https://twitter.com/theHarshFolio/status/1582363366986698754?s=20
https://twitter.com/theHarshFolio/status/1586349637207613440?s=20
https://twitter.com/theHarshFolio/status/1582392700451819520?s=20
https://twitter.com/theHarshFolio/status/1582383230413524992?s=20
https://twitter.com/theHarshFolio/status/1582388469359579138?s=20
https://twitter.com/theHarshFolio/status/1582382064573513728?s=20
https://twitter.com/theHarshFolio/status/1582382666531622912?s=20
Hope its of some use. Thanks for asking
16 Likes