In an interview to CNBC-TV18's Surabhi Upadhyay and Nigel D'souza, SP Tulsian shared his readings and outlook on the fundamentals of the market and specific stocks.
Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.
Surabhi: The kind of market that we are in where highly leveraged companies are getting punished – for instance, take a look at Reliance Communications. The company came out with a release saying no, we have actually paid our bond holders. The interest that was due on May 8, yet the market is not willing to listen. The entire Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) pack is getting rammed. What do you make of the kind of stocks that are falling?
A: If you take this specific call on each company, either you need to verify the statement of the company or believe the market. But if you take the situation. First I will touch upon the Videocon Group. Everybody knew that the situation is very precarious at their end for the last couple of years and in fact, I have raised my concerns in the past also when the management used to come on the channel and used to say that they are holding huge value of assets at Mozambique and all sort of things, oil and gas and DTH and this and that.
When you see consumer durables, a group who has the prominence in consumer durables, who have been doing exceedingly well, whole sector has been doing exceedingly well and they are seen to be the laggard and relying more on the non-core assets and non-related activities, obviously they were seen all as an excuse.
Come specifically on RCom, if there is smoke, there has to be fire. Even if I do not want to comment specifically on the bond interest payment on May 8, but there are a lot of concerns on the RCom. You have seen the kind of reduction which the management have. If you take out, if you dig the statements of four years back, they have always been saying that the debts will get reduced maybe because of so many reasons and all that, the kind of reasonings which have been given, maybe by tower monetisations or maybe by the selling of the undersea cables and all kind of things. Nothing has happened.
So, when you have the combined effect of the market coming on a specific group or on a specific stock or on a particular group, you see all these negative points gets bulged up. And as of now, the whole concerns of the market is on the debt leverage assets or the stressed assets which these groups are holding and there are no hopes of the major haircuts which otherwise markets were expecting that probably banks are desperate and they may go with a haircut of as high as 50-60 percent.
But banks and lenders will be very smart in exercising the insolvency and bankruptcy code also because when the government came out with the non-performing asset (NPA) ordinance, I have said that people are not realising the force of the bankruptcy and insolvency code which will be effectively used by the RBI and these lenders.
So, probably people are finding that maybe the promoters of the company have to totally write off and get off from these companies without salvaging anything. So, why to hold the shares which are even still ruling at a value of Rs 30-50. So, these are the points of non-payment of interest on the bonds and all that are just merely a trigger used by the investors of these companies to exit from these stocks.
Nigel: Lupin, the numbers look quite disappointing. Your analysis of the same?
A: Numbers are definitely disappointing and on top of it, I do not think that there is any kind of appetite seen in buying of this pharmaceutical stocks. Though maybe looking to these numbers, I do not think that there is more downside seen beyond 5 percent in the stock because Rs 1,200-1,230 could be taken as a very good entry point for the stocks.
But there has to be some appetite or some interest which is not seen existing at all for the large pharmaceutical stocks like Lupin, Aurobindo Pharma, Glenmark Pharma or maybe Dr Reddys Laboratories. So, that lack of buying interest and maybe some kind of growth visibility being not seen for the next couple of quarters, probably people will not look to buy this stock. So, same advice that remain away though the more downside is not seen from here on.
Surabhi: The manner in which a lot of these road stocks, infrastructure stocks are falling and specifically for Reliance Infrastructure, even if they go ahead and do this Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) like IRB managed to do, does it materially change much?
A: If you see this situation, if you combine the group exposure and if you take a call of Rs 2,500 crore, one can always argue the other way that the infrastructure, maybe Reliance Infra kind of things or maybe the road assets or the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) projects all should be looked at as a different scale.
I do not think that Rs 2,500 crore is really seen a significant. It is just a drop in the ocean because if you see the ADAG Group, I am combining all, RCom, Reliance Infra or maybe there are other businesses, the kind of monetisation's we have seen happening is anywhere between as low as Rs 200 crore to as high as Rs 2,000 crore.
And I do not think that the effect of that is seen in any kind of debt reduction whether we call off monetisation of 1 percent in Paytm or maybe the road assets, but a significant progress where they have done some kind of monetisation is yet to seen get reflected with the money coming in their hand maybe like tower monetisations or maybe like the electricity, the Mumbai generation space getting monetised and all those things.
So I do not think this InvIT of Rs 2,500 crore will really be seen significant. On the contrary when you see these kind of news flow coming in, probably they expose the group or company, that they seem to be more in the dire need of the funds and all that which has in fact seen happening in case of IRB Infrastructure Developers.
I will not be saying that in case of the other InvIT of the Sterlite Technology group coming in but that is all giving the wrong signal and people have been talking that yes, because of the stress or because of their dire needs of funds, these all InvITs are not seen as a positive feature for the group or for the shares and that is the reason you see the IRB Infra also having got corrected to a significant extent after their InvIT issue and all that.
Surabhi: What would you say looking at today's price move in Voltas?
A: Will not be taking a buy call on Voltas from here on because if you take a call, always the March quarter is best. I am not saying that June quarter will not be seen good, but thereafter, you see the share peaking out and you always see the profit booking and correcting thereafter. So, maybe a pause right now you may have and upside of about 5 percent from here, but no point in taking the risk of buying at such a higher level.
Coming specifically on Bharat Forge, I am in fact impressed with the numbers having posted by the company and continue to have the positive bias looking to their class A truck orders from North America and the business models lined for the company going ahead. I am keeping a positive bias and advise buying on Bharat Forge from here.
Nigel: I wanted to get your view on Century Textiles. I remember you got the timing of the entry absolutely spot on. I think the stock close to doubled from there. Today it is under pressure. At what price would it be a good re-entry opportunity? I remember from the time you had recommended it, I think the stock is up more than 50 percent.
A: We have recommended the stock in last February, February, 2016 at Rs 400 and from there it has almost tripled. And in fact if you see now, situation what I have gathered from the dealing room from my broking friends and all that that a lot of liquidations are seen happening today of the cash shares to finance the losses of the Futures and Options (F&O) positions because obviously F&O positions of the retail traders got cut and actually to finance those losses because there was naturally the margin shortage and if you see the situation now, Century Textile has really become a darling of the retail investors also practically having invested practically all at the upper level.
So, that position to finance the F&O losses, their cash position has seen having been liquidated by the brokers because the share remains with the brokers as a security or as a margin also. So, maybe this pain is there only till tomorrow. Once that gets over, I will not be surprised to see this share bouncing back again by maybe 6-8 percent maybe in the next week to 10 days only. So, this is just a margin call pressure and in fact this Century Textile is not alone, there are many these kind of stocks where the shares are seen having liquidated by the broker to finance the F&O losses because all the F&O losses got cut because of the margin call pressure today.
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