Month: May 2008

Apollo Tyres’ Q4FY08 performance was higher than expected because of rise in margins. Net sales grew by 10% yoy to Rs10bn (our expectations of Rs10.3bn), with volumes growing by ~4%yoy to ~75,000MT. EBIDTA margins declined by 100bps qoq (higher 120bps yoy) at 12.4% and were above our expectations (11%) due to a better product mix and positive impact of price hikes. Net profit grew by 38.7%yoy to Rs 593m.

Going forward, expect 11% CAGR in consolidated revenues led by continued strength in replacement market sales and a partial recover in domestic T&B OEM segment. Despite the recent price hike of ~5% in the replacement market, we expect Apollo’s margins to come off by ~100bps from the present level due to sustained surge in prices of key raw materials like NR and crude based inputs.

Sterlite Technologies’ (STL) Q4FY08 revenues and EBITDA have been in line with our estimates, while net profit has exceeded expectations mainly due to a lower tax burden for the quarter. The management’s FY09 guidance is also ahead of our estimates with revenue and PAT growth pegged at 35–45% and 55–60% respectively.

STL holds a robust order book totalling Rs 13.2bn, with orders worth Rs 3bn received from Power Grid in April. The company’s Haridwar plant was commissioned during the quarter and is operating at optimum capacity utilisation, driving volume growth in the conductor segment. The management is also continuing with its plans to further expand manufacturing capacities in the conductor and optic fibre businesses in order to achieve global scale.

IT Outsourcing giant, Satyam Computer Services has landed itself into a Billion Dollar Trouble. Satyam was developing mobile payment system for UPaid. When UPaid’s patent applications came up for review, Satyam Computers provided forged documents which resulted in Upaid losing a patent infringement case against Telecom giants Qualcomm and Verizon.

UPaid filed a case of fraud and forgery against Satyam Computers in Texas. Satyam sought the proceedings to be heard in London but the High Court of London dismissed the case. Satyam now has to goto trial in texas and chances of it losing the case are very very high.

So IT Managers, beware before you outsource work involving Intellectual Property Rights to India.

Here is the market share of various Life Insurance Companies in India at the end of FY2008.

LIC 48.1%
ICICI Prudential 13.7%
Allianz Bajaj 10.3%
SBI Life 6.2%
HDFC Standard 4.1%
Birla Sunlife 3.4%
Reliance Life 3.4%
Max New York 2.4%
OM Kotak 1.9%
AVIVA 1.8%
Tata AIG 1.5%
MetLife 1.4%
ING Vysya 1.2%
Shriram Life 0.3%
Bharti Axa Life 0.2%

The top 5 life insurance companies in India control 85% of the market-share while the remaining dozen are still struggling to setup their operations. LIC is the best when it comes to settlement of claims.

If HP’s acquisition of EDS goes through, in our view it is likely to lead to an open offer for minority shareholders of Mphasis (~61% owned by EDS). We believe it makes sense for combined entity to take Mphasis (27,000 emp) private and fully merge it with offshore arm of HPQ (est. ~30,000 emp).

What happened in the Digital Globalsoft[Digital Equipment India Ltd] case – Post merger with Compaq, HP had merged HP-ISO with Digital Globalsoft (majority owned by Compaq) and then de-listed it. HP had made an open offer of Rs750 per share (at ~50% premium to floor open offer price) and finally de-listed at Rs850 per share.