Posted below is my reply and counter reply to two query raised on comparison of Gujarat Ambuja Exports and Riddhi Siddhi Gluco based on my 25 pages report on Starch & Starch Derivatives sector.
1st Reply :- ---------------------------------------------------- I read the discussions as also your conclusion as to which company is better than other. However, with due respect to the points mentioned by you, I must say that each company has its own place in the portfolio and each company is better than other in some sense. To go in detail, when a sector is experiencing robust growth with expansion in margins, a pure-play leader is far better bet on it then a diversified company which has such sector contributing just 20 % of the total revenue. Such diversified company will get much lower valuation than a pure-play leader. Now, to talk specifically, take the case of overall topline of Guj. Ambuja Exports for last 5 years. It just shows a growth of meagre 9-10 % in the span of entire 5 years` period with FY06 topline at Rs. 1297.8 cr. while FY10 topline at Rs. 1410.60 cr. If, in the same period you look at the performance of its maize-processing division, it has shown a growth of almost 200 % with a small 100-110 cr. topline in FY06 to Rs. 343.84 cr. topline in FY10. If we minus the contribution of maize-processing division of Guj. Ambuja Ex. from its topline then its topline will show a degrowth of -10 % which is a very pathetic performance over a 5 year period when you have economy growing at 6 % + every year. Similar is the case with EBIDTA wherein from an insignificant contribution in FY06 maize-processing division has contributed 43 % of the entire EBIDTA achieved by GAEL in FY10. Hence, minus maize-processing division, EBIDTA would have degrown by -20 % over a five years` period. This proves that GAEL`s presence in starch & starch derivatives sector has sustained it, and infact grown it, uptill now and enabled it to reach a position where promoters themselves are finding it attractive. However, Starch & Starch Derivatives sector has itself registered tremendous growth in last five years and what is it that management of GAEL did independently to make its company`s business attractive minus its presence in Starch sector ? Nothing !! Agreed, GAEL management saw the boom coming and managed their presence in Starch sector very well and I appreciate the management for their efforts in enabling their Starch division to outperform industry by quite a wide margin but this fact doesn`t make it a compelling buy and give it a First-Buy status. On the contrary, what it means is that Starch & Starch Derivatives sector is seeing a tremendous boom wherein even sheer presence of a company in this sector and efficient management of resources enables it to grow manyfold within a short period of time. GAEL is defenitely better placed than EICL, Tirupati, Universal and Gayatri but is on par with Sukhjit and below par as compared to Riddhi and Anil. This is the basic reason in the report I have mentioned the fact that GAEL is `Dark Horse` of Starch Sector but for it to emerge as a winner and create shareholder value, either it will have to sell-off non- performing division or demerge Maize-processing division into separate listed entity. Till time this happens, other divisions of GAEL will not atall allow its valuation to rise significantly on the stock market and it will always underperform Riddhi. Now, to take your point on Riddhi, the only risk factor for investment into Riddhi is its debt at around Rs. 200 cr. One needs to understand the reason why this high debt is there in the books. If you see their plants of Gokak, Viramgam and Pantnagar, they are world-class plants and best in Asia. In last many years they have invested heavily to ramp up capacity as well as build best quality plants. Their vision is to become largest cornstarch player in asia and this they can do it only with pace. They have taken debt route of financing rather than diluting equity heavily and with this, investors and analysts should be happy rather than concerned. Yes - concern should arise if they are not growing topline at brisk pace but this is not the case as Riddhi has been growing topline and therefore capturing market-share briskly since last many years. Now, the time is ripe to get fruit of all the investments Riddhi has made since last many years and the high debt will now start coming down at brisk pace from now on because of healthy internal cash generation as well as french cornstarch major taking equity stake in the company for an amount equivalent to current debt. This will add straightaway to bottomline which will rerate the stock significantly in the near future. As far your point on not managing capital well goes, a company has to first learn to manage business well and after that it should manage capital well. Riddhi`s management has proved that it can very well manage the business by investing heavily in capacity addition in a recessionary period when other players were just sustaining or investing mildly. In the same last five years` period as we took in case of GAEL, Riddhi grew its topline by 200.46 % and EBIDTA by 262.37 % which itself shows how well the management has managed the business. EBIDTA margins for Riddhi for FY10 stands at 16.05 % as compared to GAEL`s Maize-Processing division EBIDTA margins for FY10 which is at 12.94 %. If we take recent Q1Fy11 numbers than Riddhi`s EBIDTA margin is at 22.17 % while that of GAEL maize-processing division (Q1FY11) is at 17.91 %. To conclude, GAEL promoters might have managed capital well but they are poor in terms of managing business. Riddhi might not have managed capital as well as GAEL but has managed business exceedingly well and when the sector has started giving extremely healthy cash generation and investment phase of Riddhi almost getting concluded with the commisioning of additional capacity at pantnagar plant in June 2010, we will see significant improvement in balance sheet going forward. I will again stress the point, capital comes second to business as capital has to be invested for business and improper management of business will in no way make the company grow over a long period of time. So, Now, tell me when you have two companies - one which is having just a 20 % presence in booming sector and whose entire growth depends on its presence in this sector and - two you have company which is a leader of the same booming sector and has consistently shown over the period of last 10 years that it can manage the business very well by outperforming all others in terms of growth and margins -- which company you will choose. Lastly, the only thing I will say again is that each company has its place in a portfolio and they should in no way be compared and still if you want to compare then Riddhi is far better than GAEL in many ways. Hence, Riddhi is a certain `Safe-First-BUY` while GAEL is a `Dark Horse` which might give you good return over a long term. Rgds. Mahesh ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================ my 2nd Counter-Reply =================================== I think you have not understood my post correctly and so I will take your points 1-by-1, --------------------------------------- Point - 1. A company (GAEL) is growing a business where it has higher margins and reducing its sales in lower margin business .. "You think that is negative?" - Poor management of Business? --------------------------------------- My Answer - If GAEL would have achieved higher topline and higher margins in a business segment irrespective of other players then it would have been called excellent management of business. However, this is not the case and all the major players of Starch segment have registered robust growth in topline as well as margins so GAEL management is riding with herd and so it is called opportunistic management rather than excellent management. If the opportunity of boom in Starch sector would have not come then GAEL would have registered a degrowth in topline for all the 5 years under consideration and its margins would have also got sqeezed considerably by now. Now, take the case of Riddhi and see why I call its business management excellent. Here, let`s take an example of FY08 which saw corn prices (65 % cost for any company in starch sector) shot up by 40 %. In the same FY08, Riddhi was faced with another challange in the form of a severe fire at its Gokak plant which contributed 50 % to the company`s entire produce. This plant was forced to shut for 5 months out of 12 months of FY08. Now, apply a simple logic of cost of raw material going up by 40 % and a plant contributing 50 % of the topline shutting down for 5 entire months. In this case any company would have registerd a severe degrowth in topline and red figure in bottomline. Let`s see what Riddhi reported in FY08 - a topline of 333.15 cr. against the topline of 355.87 cr. of FY07 and an EBIDTA of 54.62 cr. against the EBIDTA of 54.33 cr. of FY07. Now, take the same case with GAEL and see what figures its maize- processing division reported in FY08 which saw raw material cost rising by 40 %. It is worthwhile to note here that in FY08 GAEL or any other player for that matter was not faced with a calamity like Riddhi faced of fire at Gokak plant. Let`s see the figures - in FY08 GAEL`s maize-processing division reported a topline of 132.88 cr. as against the topline of 123.48 cr. in FY07 and an EBIDTA of 11.90 cr. as against 20.42 cr. EBIDTA of FY07. >From reported figures it is clear that an increase of 40 % in raw material cost saw GAEL`s EBIDTA erode by 41.72 % whereas the same case when presented before Riddhi with the addition of calamity of fire at its 50 % contributing plant saw its EBIDTA actually grow by 0.53 %. To conclude, Mr. whatsup I am in no way saying that to take the opportunity of a growing segment is negative but here you want to compare GAEL with Riddhi and at the current satge GAEL is in no way a better bet than Riddhi on the starch sector. --------------------------------- 2. Company is performing giving better return on capital even when margins are tight? - Which means it can beat Riddhi if there is a price war as its more efficient in capital allocation? --------------------------------- The above example itself shows how poor margin-management is of GAEL as compared to Riddhi but if you read my report on starch sector deeply then you will find that Riddhi`s EBIDTA margins are always higher than that of GAEL. The price war which you talk about is quite a far away as we are still at an inflexion point and at the bottom of the curve rather than at the top of the curve. And even if we take your poiunt of price war into consideration then Riddhi in all respects will be better placed than GAEL to control the price as it is commanding a 35 % + market share of Starch Sector. When a company has to grow fast and set-up world-class plants, it needs to forego efficient capital management for a while and this is exactly what Riddhi has done. Now, entire investment phase for Riddhi is over and only rewards can be expected which is evident from a 13.50 % NPM attained by it in Q1FY11. To talk frankly, price wars are much far away as still there are not many players in the industry and demand is overstripping supply by quite a wide margin. It is when you will see many players jumping to this sunrise sector when you need to be cautious regarding price wars and not now. -------------------------- 3. GAEL Promoters (63%) are buying stock left right and center and hold 50% more shareholding than Riddhi Promoters(43%) .. and Riddhi promoters have not bought a single share .. it means Riddhi is better than GAEL? ----------------------------- Here you are right but were infosys promoters holding 60-70 % stake even when it was growing rapidly and were Mr. Murty and his family buying stakes in the open market when they were expecting their company to perform well ? Dear whatsup, higher promoters stake is a comforting factor but in no way a barometer of how well the management or the company is. Still, you are wrong in other way also as you are not counting the stake of Roquette, the world`s 3rd largest cornstarch player in Riddhi. Roquette holds a 14.93 % stake in Riddhi which when coupled with promoter holding brings the total holding to 58.15 % which is not far away from that of GAEL. On the contrary, it is an extremely comforting factor as you have a world major holding almost 15 % stake in a company which itself gives credibility to the management skills of Riddhi. ================= Lastly, regarding your last points, Mr. whatsup why you are talking regarding tops when we have just done a take-off. Top is far away, most probably 5-10 years down the line and if we invest by keeping our minds closed or emotionally attaching ourselves towards a particular comapny then in no way we will derive excellent return. Nither I am in love with Riddhi nor should you be in love with GAEL. We need to keep our minds open and here each other`s points and discuss them frankly to arrive at a decision for the benefit of all of us. Take my words, if you have a genuine point I will never counteract it and instead will be the first one to appreciate you. Lastly, I again say there is no comparision between a pure play and a diversified company and each company has its own place in the portfolio but if you want to bet on Starch & Starch Derivatives sector then Riddhi is a much safer and better bet than GAEL. Rgds.... Mahesh -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""GLOBAL SPECULATORS"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalspeculators?hl=en.
