Q4 FY18 earnings review: 10 largecap ideas Motilal Oswal is betting big on

We expect Nifty EPS to grow 27.4 percent to Rs 579 in FY19 and 19.6 percent to Rs 693 in FY20.

Ten focus stocks from Q4FY18 earning season:

SBI

State Bank of India's (SBI) watchlist declined to Rs 25,800 crore, which includes stressed SMA1 exposure (Rs 2,990 crore) and entire SMA2 exposure (Rs 2,500 crore). Management guided for 2 percent credit cost for FY19, and we estimate earnings to recover smartly, further aided by NCLT resolutions.

Healthy PCR, strong capitalisation levels and a strong liability franchise enables SBI to capitalise on any improvement in the macro environment. SBI's subsidiaries – SBI MF, SBI Life Insurance, SBI Cards and SBICap Securities – have been reporting strong growth, and the bank plans to list SBI Cards and SBI MF by FY20, which would drive further value unlocking.

ICICI Bank

A stable performance in the core business and a successive decline in the size of watchlist/stressed assets provide confidence on the long-awaited turnaround. Near-term loan growth would be driven by the retail business, and the share of high-yielding products like credit cards, personal loans and business banking is likely to inch up.

The retail business matrix remains healthy with a) robust liability franchise and b) retail contribution to fees at more than 70 percent. With a sharp decline in credit cost and a pick-up in revenue growth, we expect ICICI Bank to report around 1.4 percent return on assets (RoA) over FY20E.

IndusInd Bank

We expect growth in the consumer finance division to show a continued revival, with broad-based growth in the vehicle finance division. IIB has significantly strengthened its liability franchise and is making strong progress in winning government business.

Bharat Financial merger will drive sharp expansion in margins, complement fee income opportunities and help deliver a steady decline in cost-ratios. Capitalisation remains one of the best in the industry at 14.6 percent tier 1 ratio.

M&M

M&M is the best bet on a rural recovery, as it would improve visibility of volumes in the tractor and utility vehicle (UV) businesses. Rural market contributes around 56 percent of revenues and 72 percent of S/A PAT. Several levers are available to margin improvement – such as mix (higher tractor and pick-up volumes), lower commercial vehicle (CV) and 2-wheeler business losses, lower marketing spend, and positive operating leverage.

While the tractor business will continue benefiting from rural resurgence, the UV business will benefit from three new launches in FY19. A sharp beat in the Q4FY18 performance was driven by an improvement in the auto business mix and EBITDA breakeven in the CV business.

We estimate around 60bp margin improvement to 15.4 percent over FY18-20, driving around 14 percent core EPS CAGR over FY18-20.

Bajaj Finance

Bajaj Finance is the most diversified NBFC in the country, with a suite of over 30 products across different segments – ranging from consumer finance to commercial finance to rural finance. The company laid its foundation on robust analytical technology, due to which it has been able to identify early warning signals and avoid any asset quality issues.

With increasing geographical penetration and new product introduction, the company has delivered more than 35 percent AUM growth over the past five years, with RoA/RoE consistently at 3%+/20%+. Asset quality has been best-in-class, with a gross non-performing loans ratio of around 1.5 percent.

Titan Company

While jewellery sales momentum was healthy despite a high base, what stood out the most about the results was the margin outperformance, the margin guidance and the jewellery segment growth guidance for FY19.

Management's confidence on margin has increased remarkably over the past one year – moving from the talk about sacrificing margins for high growth last year to talking about sacrificing margin growth in the quest for growth toward the middle of FY18 and finally stating that if high growth sustains, margins will improve.

This confidence is coming from high growth (25 percent guidance for FY19 on top of 25 percent growth in jewellery in FY18) and a high proportion of same-store-sales growth (SSSG) fuelling growth.

Hindustan Unilever

The key highlights of the results were (1) volume growth of 11 percent (despite a positive base of 4 percent) at a time when even smaller peers were struggling to grow in high-single-digits despite a weak base, (2) every key segment reporting double-digit sales growth, indicating remarkably broad-based growth and (3) continuing outperformance relative to expectations on margins, despite increased adspend YoY.

Page Industries

Page results surprised on all three fronts – sales, EBITDA and PAT – but particularly noteworthy was strong 22 percent sales growth and the sharp margin improvement led by robust sales growth and increased pace of outsourcing (30 percent of sales in Q4FY18, nearly doubling in proportion over the past year).

While men’s innerwear volumes were muted due to a short-term supply chain constraint, the other segments performed very well.

Larsen & Toubro

With the operating performance broadly in line, the key highlight from the Q4FY18 result has been a revival in domestic execution with GST impact subsiding.

Domestic engineering & construction execution seems to be picking up (+19 percent YoY), supported by the infrastructure segment (+25 percent YoY) and Heavy Engineering(+27 percent YoY). We remain positive on the stock with an SOTP target price of Rs 1,650.

UltraTech Cement

The company posted a sequential improvement in profitability (margin beat), led by higher realisation and a lower cost curve (reduction in staff cost and other expenses).

UltraTech is likely to witness strong growth in EBITDA in FY19, led by the full impact of ramp-up of acquired capacity and growth in underlying markets.

The company is likely to be the biggest beneficiary of a likely upturn in the Indian cement cycle over FY18-20, as it commands around 20 percent market share. We value UltraTech at 14.5x FY20 EV/EBITDA to arrive at a TP of Rs 4,818.

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