goldentip, The case of Indian Bank is also interesting. Till such time, PC was FM, the merger was ruled out. Now there is a slight chance. Now that Andhra State elections have recently been held and YSR is not there, there would not be much hurdle for merger of Andhra Bank with PNB or BOB or any other big bank, and also given the good fundamentals of Andhra Bank....

goldentip, Yes, the present CMD of PNB was the CMD of Allahabad Bank earlier. But, PNB, why for that matter any major nationalised bank, would not like to merge any kolkata-based bank (sorry, if I offend anyone). Why I am saying is that PNB itself had experience many a times in the region. Now, the news (as per UTV) is that Union Bank has made presentation for merger of Corporation Bank with itself. Incase PNB is to go in for merger of another bank, the next fundamentally good bank (after Corporation Bank) is Andhra Bank. Who knows what is the call of the political master? ...

In my opinion JKL is priced at 50% discount bcs of mistakes done by management in d past.But now they hv learnt lesson and becoming investor friendly In last 4 months they hv rewarded shareholders with a dividend of Rs 6(Rs 4 for 2008-9 and Rs 2 as interim for current year).Finally FIIs and MFs wl notice d change and accumulate.Even if no takeover it wl give best returns in 6 months....

Well, For UID if smart card is not issued than also to collect this details they require biometric device in large quantity. Also,as a whole if you consider there is a lot of scope of barcode industry in india. Regarding apke dwar as far as I am aware its rollout was planned this year end only.and I believe tht is the reason thy are not revising their topline.I would suggest wait for 1 yr to get more clarity. The risk till tht date is very low as it has order of 600 cr + Delhi Kiosk + Apkedwar. If order book is not increasing we need to think ...

Not sure this sounds like a good or bad thing for investors... I have entered at 125 and was hoping that 200 can be my sell target... With this take over thing...what can be possible target numbers for exit?...

the management will never sell this company. it is a milking cow for them. ...

Dear shri NSEMUMBAIBULL, I am planing to invest reasonable amount in GIPCL and J K Laxmi cement script. Out of these two which one is better in long term. I am long term investor. Please guide me and help if possible in taking decision. Thanking you. a4patel...

It does not matter if you offend someone as long as you do not use profanities, you are just speaking the truth. I think Canara bank is going for Dena bank and UBI is merging with Corporation bank. Andhra bank might be amalgamated as well. There is Syndicate and Vijaya banks also, both headquartered in Karnataka (like Canara and Corporation) which could be up for grabs. Bank of Maharashtra does not provide similar scale but might find the going tough as per Basel II norms. I also expect merger of SBI associates to happen sooner. The east based banks, Allahabad, UCO and the unlisted United Bank of India, I do not know what happens to them. Pranab Mukherjee might want them to merge but he won`t like another volatile situation in WB before assembly elections in 2011. ...

The current CMD of PNB was CMD of Allahabad Bank. As all of you know, the larger PSB`s, PNB, BOB, BOI, UBI and Canara Bank are looking to consolidate, and smaller banks are now in the process of getting identified and merged. Which will give higher valuations to these smaller banks in the interim, and they usually trade at a lower PE and P/BV than their larger peers.

As the CMD of PNB knows Allahabad Bank in and out, we can expect some moves here. The only problem here is, most of the branches of Allahabad Bank are concentrated in the east, many of them in WB. You can expect more HR issues (read: protests against merger, strikes) there in tune with the culture.

On the other hand, merger of banks like Dena Bank, Syndicate Bank and Bank of Maharashtra would be easier given their geographical concentration in the west and south.

Still I`ll continue holding ALBK in the hope that better sense will prevail. ...

"they require biometric device in large quantity" - why? For 120 crores, I think we`d need a maximum of half a million such devices at the most. Or may be less. Maybe just half a lakh.

Isn`t Delhi kiosk the same as Aap Ke Dwar? Why have you mentioned it twice?...

Hey, I am just talking about a possibility. Takeover is indeed going to be a very very good thing, because management will not sell unless they get a 100% premium on today`s CMP. As I mentioned earlier, one should be willing to pay at least $100/tonne of capacity to take over an established cement company.

The money promoters can take off the table otherwise is what they earn as dividends. However if they want to sell they will get twice that of CMP easily.

Commodity companies are valued at replacement cost. I am really surprised that J K Lakshmi languishes at Rs 125 levels when it should be Rs 250-300 really. ...

vjtech, I am a shareholder, and I want Bartronics to be a multibagger but even I am concerned now. I see some genuine concerns raised by a guest here. First of all, the projections made by management look very superfluous. What they have said do not match so far in the first two qtrs. Secondly, some of us have been thinking that Bartronics will benefit from UID project but Nandan has clearly said that UID is not a smart card project. They will just create unique id`s and store as much information as possible for id holders, and later on this information will be used by subscribers right from mobile phone operators to banks to passport to PDS to NREGA, so on and so forth. So there is no smart card, there could be biometric id collection but that is not Bartronics` forte.

I do not know about the execution status of Aap ke dwar but what this guest says is worrying me.

Let us wait for some more clarity on all these aspects. I was cautiously optimisitic earlier, but now I am just cautious. ...

This is true, but you have to remember that cement is cyclical business. Like any cyclical business, cement too has its profitable cycles and not so profitable cycles.

Management may not want to sell this company but I am not able to foresee further value creation for the shareholders; they are trading at more than 50% discount to their peers from a EV/tonne valuation perspective, and the P/E ratio has been miserably low for a very long time.

It takes about $85-$90 to set up a tonne of greenfield cement capacity; ofcourse the cost efficiency increases with scale. However it takes time to build a greenfield capacity. So if a new entrant wants to enter the India market or if an existing player wants to scale up, they will be willing to pay a premium and buy another existing player. Why premium? Because capacity is ready as soon as the acquisition is made. Because you don`t have to build a brand. Okay, brand may not be so important because cement is a pure commodity. But you don`t have to set up a new distributor network. You are ready to take off from day zero.

What capacity should one be willing to pay. I expect at least 15-20%, because that will be the cost of capital for two-three years, even if they borrow at the minimum possible rate and build greenfield capacity.

Which means any company who wants to acquire a sizeable player like JK Lakshmi should offer at least $100/ tonne, which is still at a discount to $110-$120 for ACC and Ambuja.

Who is a potential buyer? I do not want to drop names here, but something that is on top of my mind, is Holcim. You know why I am saying this. Holcim was the largest player so far as they are the owners of ACC and Ambuja. But now with the merger of Grasim (Samrudhi) and Ultratech, they have been relegated to No. 2. Birla might consolidate further when they get Century Textiles and Kesoram`s Cement businesses from B K Birla. So Holcim will continue to fall behind them.

In a commodity market, only the largest two-three players have some pricing power as they control 40-50% of the market typically. So nobody wants to fall behind. I`d expect Holcim to start making some moves sooner than expected, and this is one reason I am holding onto J K Lakshmi even more tightly. ...

Rakesh and Rekha Jhunjhunwala (RaRe) had 20,22,500 shares at on June 30, 2009 and as on Sep 30, 2009, they have 20,02,925 shares. So they have only sold 19,575 shares during the qtr ending Sep 30, 2009.

To put things in perspective, the couple still hold 11.63% of the total number of shares as against 11.75% on June 30, 2009.
They have sold only 0.12% of the total number of shares.

In addition, Bajaj Allianz LIC has picked up 2.89% in the company.

The stock is more than 25% down from the high of Rs 549 it reached on June 4, 2009.

Looks like great value, however, I have one major concern: over the last four qtrs, both topline and bottomline have remained flat.

P/E ratio-wise, the stock is attractive, but unless one sees a growth trend, one can`t make up his mind to invest more.



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While Ahmednagar Forgings has continued falling day after day post -Satyam fiasco, Amtek Auto is holding fort around 54-56. What this means, is that the arbitrage between Amtek Auto and Ahmednagar is widening. If you buy 100 shares of Ahmednagar at about Rs 25, you`ll spend around Rs 2525 (including about 1% brokerage), which is Rs 45.09 for each share of Amtek Auto (56 Amtek Auto for 100 Ahmednagar Forgings). That`s only 82% of the current market price of Amtek Auto (Rs 55). So you save 18%.

However the bigger question is whether you want to buy any of these shares in the first place. If you want to buy Amtek Auto, it is better to buy Ahmednagar Forgings. But you must know that you`ll not be able to realize any profit in the next 3 years. The outlook in the auto sector is terrible and Amtek has significant exposure in Europe and the US, which makes it more vulnerable to the recessionary conditions in the market....