16 October 2009

Which hidden jewels will Ashish Chugh buy this Diwali?

Which hidden jewels will Ashish Chugh buy this Diwali?


Ashish Chugh, Invesment Analyst and Author of Hidden Gems is bullish on Visaka Industries and Deccan Gold Mines.

On Visaka Industries

Visaka Industries is basically a play on rural infrastructure. This company manufactures cement asbestos sheets and also reinforced cement boards. The company also has a textile division. It has got six manufacturing plants for making asbestos products and two manufacturing plant for garments.

If you take a look at the financials of the company. FY09, the sales of the company were about Rs 575 crore, profit after tax of about Rs 36 crore. This was after paying a tax of about Rs 20 crore. EPS for FY09 was about Rs 23.

If you look at the first quarter sales are up by about 10% to about Rs 190 crore. Profit after tax for the June quarter is about Rs 26 crore as against Rs 36 crore for the full year last year. Tax payment for this quarter is about Rs 12.5 crore.

For FY10 we expect the company to do a profit close to Rs 55 crore which would mean an EPS of about Rs 35. This is the stock which has got a good potential going ahead, it is catering to a growth market and at the same time the stocks is available at sensible valuations. It is available at a price to earning multiple of about 3.5 going on FY10 earnings.

If you see the dividend track record of the company, this company has got an uninterrupted track record of dividend payment for the past 12-13 years. Last year they paid about 40% dividend. So dividend yield at the current price is also about 3.5 to 4%.

So you have a stock with the market cap of about Rs 200 crore. Cash profits for FY10 are expected to be around Rs 70-75 crore. So you are getting a business to market cap to cash ratio of less than three years which is under valuation. Dividend yield is also pretty good at about 3.5-4%.

On Deccan Gold Mines

Deccan Gold Mines is the first private sector gold mining company and rather the only gold mining company listed on the Indian stock exchanges. The company has got blocks spread across four states. The total area of the blocks is more than 10,000 sq kilometers.

Talking of gold mining business gold mining company has to pass through three stages before they can commercially start mining gold. The first stage is called reconnaissance permit where they seek the approval of the authorities to do exploratory activities on say 200-300 sq kilometer of the block. Second stage is prospecting license wherein they short list about 25 sq kilometer or 30 sq kilometer out of the total area where they would like to do the further exploratory studies and the third stage is called mining lease where in they short list about half a sq kilometer or one sq kilometer where they would actually like to drill and take gold out or rather rock out and then refine it and produce gold.

The company has filed application for about six blocks for mining license. As per the management the actually mining of the company is expected to start in the last quarter of FY10-11 which is January to March of FY11 and if you look at the valuations of this company as of now the company has got zero revenues. It has a market cap of Rs 200 crore but going by what the management has been saying that. Management says that they are able to derive about 4 tonne of gold per annum assuming on a conservative basis that they are able to do only 2 tonne and taking a price of about Rs 15,000 per ten grams this would translate into revenues of about Rs 300 crore. Typically internationally the gold exploration cost is about USD 350-400 per ounce which in this case will translate into Rs 5000-5500 per ten grams. Assuming initial expenses to be high we still believe that on a conservative basis the operating profit of the company could be in the region of 40-50% which means on a revenue of about Rs 300 crore the company can do about Rs 120-150 crore of operating profit so as of now there are no profits but market cap is only Rs 200 crore which is less than 2 years of the companies operating profit. The valuation is low mainly because of two reasons. One is the uncertainties involved in the business and also the uncertainties with regard to the regulatory clearances for this company. The second relates to the psychology of the investor. Most people do not want to buy these companies now when the production is still one, one and a half years away. Everybody thinks that they are going to buy the company as soon as the company is going to start production but people will realize that smart money would already have accumulated the stock at lower levels.


I am not advocating buying the stock just now at upper circuits. I would not advise doing that but I think one can keep an eye on the stock. I would ideally believe that Rs 25-30 levels would be a good level to get into the stock but one can chose to do staggered purchases for this stock. Rather than thinking that they will buy everything when the production starts, start accumulating at this point of time. I would like to say that this is the one for a very high risk investor because of the uncertainties involved in the business and also somebody with a time frame of about 3-5 years.


Disclosure: I have investments in Deccan Gold Mines but have no investment positions or trading positions in Visaka Industries.


Src: Moneycontrol.com

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