Shares of Central Depository Services (India) Ltd gained on September 18 after Motilal Oswal Financial Services initiated coverage on its peer National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) with a 'neutral' rating.
MOFS gave a target price of Rs 1,200 for the recently-listed stock, which implies 7% downside from the current market price.
At 3:21 pm on September 18, CDSL shares were trading 1.2% higher at Rs 1,587.3 apiece with intraday high being Rs 1,625. Meanwhile, NSDL was trading 0.24% lower at Rs 1,287.
NSDL stock is fairly valued at current prices, positives priced in, said MOFS adding given duopoly in the industry, depositories deserve premium valuations.
MOFS expects NSDL's revenue and profit to grow at compounded annual rates of 5% and 15%, respectively, between FY25 and FY28.
NSDL stock rose 61% from issue price of Rs 800 after listing on August 6.
MOFS said NSDL's leadership in depository services, scale advantages, robust infrastructure, affluent client base, and strategic subsidiaries position it well to capitalise on structural growth.
"NSDL dominates in institutional, custodian, and large corporate accounts, resulting in revenue per active account at Rs 157 in FY25 — nearly 3x that of CDSL. The institutional skew offers more stable revenue pools linked to custody value rather than purely transaction volumes, underpinning resilience across market cycles.
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