My View On Zee Entertainment

About The Company

The Company owned by Mr Goyal , who bought revolution to the world of entertainment with a launch of single channel Zee tv and thereafter a series of channels has been associated to it.

Though the ranking of the channel has been reduced from number one to third position after facing a tough competition from the market including Star and Sony.

About The Results

The company has posted results for the third quarter ended 31/12/2008 where the consolidated revenues, on a YoY rose marginally by 5% at Rs.545.6 crore, its net profit slipped 26% to Rs 84 crore. The company has incurred a foreign exchange derivatives loss of Rs 11.6 crore in the quarter ended December 2008. OPM has fallen on a YoY from 49.47% to 35% and NPM has come down from 28.48% to 17.72%.

The slowdown has impacted the company more than one would have imagined. The technicians strike in Oct-Nov impacted the bottomlines. But more than that, advertising revenues have slumped and this has dented the overall performance. Advertising rates, all over have come down drastically but the company wants to keep holding on to its rates and prefers to clock in lower volumes than lower the rates. This might be good for the pride but for the financials of the company, this attitude does not bode too well. One has to move with the time and now when the times are bad, instead of depressing the bottomlines, it would have been prudent for the company if it had reduced rates. But if the same trend continues, which as such is expected till first half of FY10, does this mean that till then the company will not bring down the rates?

The company expects to earn revenue from its subscription income and for FY09, advertising revenue is expected to grow by 15% and subscription by 23%. The company trimmed its FY09 operating margin forecast to 25% compared with 28% last year. Q4 is expected to remain flat.

About The Stock

Entertainment sector has a whole is not a good pack and would not reward the investors at least.Short term gain on specific news could be made but having delivery position is not a good idea.

Disclaimer : I do not have any personal holding in this stock.

My View On Praj Industries

About The Company

Praj Industries is a global Indian company that offers innovative solutions to significantly add value in bio-ethanol, bio-diesel and brewery plants and related wastewater treatment systems.

The company is engaged in the design, manufacture, supply and commissioning of fermentation and distillation equipments for the manufacture of ethanol. The company was promoted by Pramond Chaudhari in 1985. The company's plant is located at Bhosari, Pune (Maharastra). PIL came out with a public issue of Rs.6.20 crore in January 1994. PIL manufactures plate head exchangers in collaboration with REHEAT, Sweden. The company sells its product under the name, 'HIFLUX' and solvent recovery systems under the brand name 'Ecofine'. The company also manufactures pressure fermentation breweries in collaboration with Dab Brav Consult Gmbh, Germany. The company has a market share of 60 per cent and is the market leader in ethanol plant and equipment manufacture. The company, in collaboration with Vogellbusch Gmbh, Austria, introduced cascade continuous fermentation process, for the first time in India. PIL has promoted a subsidiary in Singapore, Praj Far East Pte Ltd, for export of design and engineering services and industrial products to the South East Asian countries. The company plans to expand its manufacturing facilities near Pune.

About The Results

The company has posted results for the third quarter ended 31^st Dec 2008, net income from operations increased by 16% at Rs 210.05 crore. EBIDTA margins sustained at 22% of sales. The company posted a forex gain of Rs.9.69 crore on account of restatement of advances received in foreign currency from customers against orders placed by them. PAT was up 20% at Rs.47.31 crore.

The Company has raised Rs 117.05 crore in June 2007 through preferential allotment of equity shares and warrants. Out of this, an amount of Rs.57.86 crore was deployed towards expansion of R & D and balance amount was deployed towards expansion of manufacturing facilities. Accordingly, the total amount stands fully utilised.

Its order book currently stands at around Rs.800 crore. Amongst the notable order received, were orders from Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam and India. Mexico recently mandated 10% blending of bioethanol. USA has pre-poned its Renewable Fuels targets from 2012 of 11 bln gallons to 2009. This move is expected to support the capacity build-up. EU Parliament adopted the Renewable Energy Directive which mandates 10% (by energy content) biofuels blending in all transport fuels by the year 2020. This entails additional 12-14 bln litres capacity for bioethanol. These two developments would go in favour of the company but would take quite some time to fructify.

In India, a year ago, when crude was ruling around $100 per barrel and the Govt was serious about making another 10% blending of ethanol compulsory from October 08’. Then the future prospects of the stock had looked very good. The fortunes of this company are closely linked with the increasing acceptance of ethanol-blended petrol and bio-fuels. Now with crude ruling around $40 per barrel and ethanol blending also postponed indefinitely, the going looks uphill for the company.

The only enticing aspect of the stock right now remains its shareholders – Rakesh Jhunjhunwala holds 8.47% stake, Tata Capital 7.32%, Vinod Khosla’s holding is down marginally from 6.15% in Q2FY09 to 5.95%. JM Financial which held 5.25% stake in first quarter, reduced its stake to 3.82% in Q2FY09 and now in Q3FY09 it has gone up to 4.17%.

About The Stock

Any fresh investment is not likely to be fruitful in short to medium term.

Disclaimer : I do not have any personal holding in this stock.

My View On Grasim

About The Company

A well known company of the Aditya Birla Group. The stock has been fancied for long in the capital market and the stock has rewarded the shareholder well every time.

About The Results

The company has posted result for the third quarter ended 31st December 2008. Interest cost rose by 90% due to commissioning of new projects and increased borrowings. Depreciation rose by 38% and these factors coupled with the constrained VSF business performance and general slowdown in economy, impacted the net profit.

Its consolidated revenues were higher by 6 per cent at Rs. 4,632 crore (Rs. 4,350 crore). Net profit was lower at Rs. 460 crore (Rs. 721 crore), down 36% on a YoY due to the weak performance by its viscose staple fibre (VSF) business and higher input and energy costs.

Viscose staple fibre segment during the quarter, on a YoY showed a decline of 27% in production and sales was down 22%. The performance of VSF business was adversely affected due to depressed consumer demand for textile globally. Operating profits and margins dipped, also due to lower realisation, higher pulp and sulphur cost and the weakening of rupee.

In the coming months demand for VSF is not expected to pick up as it is dependent on the textile sector. And it would take a while for the textile sector to start recovering. As such the company has reduced the prices of VSF further with effect from January, 2009 to prevent its substitution by competing fibres and imports. So realisations are expected to take a further hit in fourth quarter too.

Another segment to be affected was sponge iron, whose production fell 21% and sales was down 15%. Growth in cement was flat and ditto for caustic soda. Higher caustic prices were negated by the abnormally low chlorine and HCL prices, which were down by almost 90% and 70% respectively over the corresponding quarter. The lower demand from fibre segment is likely to affect the caustic volumes in the current Q4.

About The Stock

The stock is to remain under pressure for the coming time. Any fresh investment should not be made at present times.

Disclaimer : I do not have any personal holding in this stock.

My View On GMR Infrastructure

About The Company

The company has a reputed working management well known for its quality work. The stock has been in lime light in the recent bull run.

About The Results

The company has posted results for the quarter ended 31^st Dec 2008 , which has shown a dip in profit due to forex losses. PAT, on a YoY after the forex loss was down by 36.26% at Rs.40.84 crore. But if one were to see the PAT without the forex loss, it was up 4.71% at Rs.66.08 crore.

The said notional foreign exchange loss being Rs.25.24 crore for the quarter, accounted mostly by two of the company’s subsidiaries viz., Vemagiri Power Generation Limited (VPGL) and GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL). This was on account of the conversion of the foreign currency project loans borrowed by them into rupees. These two subsidiaries have adequate dollar revenues to provide natural hedge for the currency fluctuations that may arise with respect to interest and principal payments/repayments. What also impacted the bottomline was the lower air traffic and higher interest costs.

The net revenue of the company was up by a healthy 79.28% at Rs.959.15 crore. This surge in the topline was mainly on account of the induction of revenues from Hyderabad Airport and Istanbul Airport and also due to the increased power sector revenues.

Clues In the Company

1. Delhi International Airport Private Ltd. (DIAL),despite overall passenger traffic declining by 8% for the quarter, the outlook remains good. New domestic terminal is getting ready for launch by March, 09. The construction of the new integrated terminal (T3) is progressing as per schedule and 53% of the work has been completed as on date. Bids for commercial property development have been received and the process of award of contract is expected to be completed shortly.

2. 45% construction work on the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA), Turkey has been completed commercial operation is scheduled by end October 2009. The construction of the new 3 storied car park facility has been completed and will be commissioned for operations from April 2009.

3. In its power segment, the Chennai plant has achieved a Plant Load Factor of 80.02%. GMR Energy restarted its generation as a merchant plant with effect from November 4, 2008 and is supplying power on a ‘Round-the-clock’ basis to Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM), through GMR Energy Trading Limited. The Vemagiri Power Generation Limited (VPGL) resumed operations from December 2008 based on diverted gas as per direction of Ministry of Petrol & Natural Gas, Government of India.

4. Regarding its highway projects, GMR Ambala-Chandigarh Expressways Private Limited (GACEPL), started commercial operations from December 10, 2008. The company has been shortlisted for submission of price bid for Hyderabad - Vijayawada (182km) for which price bid will be submitted in February, 2009. The other three road projects under construction, comprising of one annuity and two toll projects will be operational in the coming months before March 09.

5. There has also been concern over the company having Price Waterhouse as its auditors but the company has decided to continue with the services of Price Waterhouse and said any decision on replacing the external auditor would be taken only in the next financial year. The board decided to constitute a corporate governance committee comprising independent directors. GMR has six independent directors on its board. It has also decided to appoint two joint auditors, a multinational and an Indian audit firm, as statutory auditors from 2009-10. They will be subject to rotation every four years.

About The Stock

Wait for some more panic to get justified price of the stock.

Disclaimer : I do not have any personal holding in this stock.

My View On Tata Steel Ltd.

About The Company

The largest private sector steel company of India. The company has been headed by the well reputed group of country " TATA ". The company has been ever developing with lots of acquisition in India and overseas. The company is so well known that doesn't need an introduction. The name itself is its' intro.

About The Results

Tata steel has posted disappointing results for the third quarter ended 31^st Dec 2008. It would have been naïve to have expected anything else. The only vagary was in the expectation of the fall in the profits. Obviously the market has expected the fall in profit to be quite sharp but the actual numbers were better and thus the stock reflected this with a rise in the share price. Despite the fall in the topline and bottomline for Q3FY09, the stock closed over 2% higher.

These are standalone results and do not include the performance of Tata Steel Europe Ltd. (Corus) for the quarter / nine months ended December 31, 2008.This would be published by the end of February 2009.

The company's standalone net sales declined to Rs.4,735.68 crore, a YoY fall of 4.8% and QoQ it fell 30%. Its sales volumes were down 13.8%. The company's exports dropped to Rs 404.30 crore from Rs 596.04 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

Steel production for the quarter fell to 1.23 lakh tonnes as compared to 1.25 lakh tonnes, while steel sales dropped to 1.07 lakh tonnes from 1.24 lakh tonnes for the corresponding period of the previous year.

The operating expenses of the company have gone up and this only added on to the woes. YoY it surged 19.23% and the biggest increase was on account of the raw material cost which YoY rose 73% and 17% on a sequential basis. Cost of power rose 10% YoY and 5% on a QoQ. The staff cost went up 56% on a YoY but QoQ it showed a drop of 5%.

EBITDA on a YoY was down 37% at Rs.1359.64 crore and PBT was down 52% at Rs.760.13 crore. Net profit for the quarter was down 56% on a YoY at Rs.466.24 crore and this was down 74% on a sequential basis.

The margins have also been battered down substantially. OPM was down at 28.31% from 43.16% in Q3FY08 and NPM was down at 9.71% as against 21.48% in Q3FY08. Lower volumes, lower realisations and also higher inventory pile up led to the overall fall. Steel inventory increased to Rs.636 crore from Rs.61 crore on a YoY.

Notional exchange loss during the period includes an unrealized translation loss of Rs.153.56 crore for the quarter on Convertible Alternate Reference Securities (CARS) issued in September 2007. The liability has been translated at the exchange rate as on December 31, 2008. CARS are convertible into equity shares only between September 04, 2011 to August 06, 2012 and are redeemable in foreign currency only in September 2012, if not converted into equity, and are neither convertible nor redeemable till September 04, 2011.

During the quarter the company subscribed to 35,88,022 Rights Shares of Tayo Rolls and consequently it has now become a subsidiary of Tata Steel with effect from December 01, 2008.


About The Stock.

The stock need to be accumulated for long term prospective at every dip. There is no need to check the potential of the company. The bad phase in entire country and abroad is effecting its results , rest the whole story remains intact.

Disclaimer : I do not have any personal holding in this stock.

My View On BASF

About The Company

The company is a part of the giant conglomerate which manufactures pesticides and other chemicals.The performance recently has been disappointing as such the second half of the fiscal is not very good. As look at the past figures that this is the cyclical nature of the business – the agriculture sector especially, typically there is a slowdown in the second half as the crop is harvested. The products are used in the first half when crops are planted. The cyclical nature plus the overall global slowdown has pulled down the bottomline to a new low.

News In the Counter

Sometime ago there was news that its parent company had made an open offer to acquire to acquire Ciba Holding AG, Basel, Switzerland, [CIBN], and was to soon make a public takeover offer to Ciba’s shareholders. BASF was to pay CHF 50.00 in cash for each nominal share in Ciba. Wel, no development on that front till now but with Pfizer to now buy out Wyeth, once again hopes have revived that we could see more consolidation in this sector.

About The Results

The company has posted results for the third quarter ended 31^st Dec 2008. This is probably one the worst performances ever of the company.YoY, right from the beginning, i.e: the topline, there has been a decline, coupled with a rise in the operating expenses thus aggravating the already bad situation. Net sales was down 7.3% at Rs.206.39 crore. Operating expenses which is usually over 90% of the revenue , in current Q3 ate away 97% of the net sales, which in Q3FY08 ate away 91%. EBIDTA was down 70% at Rs.6.65 crore but after depreciation and taxation, PAT was down to a paltry Rs.41 lakhs as against Rs.11 crore in previous fiscal’s third quarter.

The shareholding pattern as on 31/12/08 indicates that promoters hold 71.18% of the shares, institutions hold 10.02% and floating stock is 18.80%. Of this again, 15.83% shares are held by individuals holding nominal share capital upto Rs.1 lakh.

About The Stock

The stock has now been a bad choice for any sort of investment including short to medium to long term horizon.

Disclaimer: I do not have any holding in this stock.

My View On Indusind Bank

About The Company

Hinduja owned IndusInd Bank is in que to establish the brand in the Indian Market. The bank has been trying to have a significant market share , which the upcoming times would say.

About The Results

The Bank has posted a good performance for the third quarter ended 31^st Dec 2008. And to a large extent, the spurt in the performance has been on account of the rise in other income, which was at Rs.133 crore as against Rs.74.30 crore in Q3FY08. And this was mainly on account of an increase in operational fee income, sale of third party products such as insurance, trade finance, treasury gains and foreign exchange transactions.

QoQ, Net Interest Income was up 11% at Rs 116.58 crore and 17.10% on a YoY. Advances grew by 12% while the management has give a guidance of a rise of 25% for FY09. The main focus of the bank has now shifted from vehicle financing, which as such was risky business with higher bad debts, to corporate financing. 50% of its bad loans are from the retail segment ad the rest from the wholesale portfolio.

The biggest positive for the Bank is the recovery it has made from Essar Oil. It has got back Rs 115 crore, lent to Essar in the 90’s and this has got down its NPA drastically in the third quarter. In Q3FY09 net NPA was at 1.3% which in Q2FY09 was at 2.21% and in

Q3FY08 at 2.42%. The loan recovery is expected to improve the asset quality of the bank substantially. CAR for the quarter was at 12.40% as against 12.45% in Q2FY09 and 12.04% in Q3FY08.

Net interest margin has improved from 1.7% in Q3FY09 to 1.95% and from 1.84% on QoQ. This was mainly due to increase in yields which rose from about 12.6% to well above 14%.

About The Stock

The stock has never been in limelight and the investor do not react to the stock much.There are better choices available in this sector for investment and trading , so this stock could be avoided.

Disclaimer : I do not have any personal holding in this stock.

My View on Dr Reddy

About The Company

The company is engaged in medicine business . Dr Reddy's , Ranbaxy and Cipla are some of the market leaders in this segment. The stock has been fancied among the investor for long time in the capital market.

About The Results

The company has posted result for the last quarter with a PAT at Rs.192 crore. The earnings would have been much higher but for the lower earnings from Europe fell due to declining prices, affecting the margins. But on the other hand, its sales in USA more than quadrupled due to the launch of its new generic drug Sumatriptan, used for treating acute migrane.

Overall revenues were up 49% on a YoY at Rs. 1840 crore. EBITDA was up 58%. Net profit was at Rs.192.0 crore as against a net loss of Rs.121.30 crore it posted in Q3FY08. What is commendable is that it posted a net forex loss of Rs 49.3 crore as against a net gain of Rs. 8.7 crore in Q3FY08. The forex loss was mainly on account of fluctuations of Russian Rouble.

Germany continues to remain a problem region. The withdrawal of Olanzapine stocks due to upholding of patent validity by a German court and price decline pulled down the margins. Its AOK tender too is entangled in legal problems and the company has said that a better profitability picture from Germany would emerge only in Q4.

Dr Reddy’s launched 10 new products during the quarter and it plans to launch two biologics products during next fiscal in the domestic market. For FY10, the company has projected a flat growth as a lot of its growth depends on the outcome of its tenders in Germany.

About The Stock

The stock has been evergreen performer but some pain is yet left and need to be over before fresh buying in this counter.

Disclaimer : I do not have any personal holding in this company.

My View On Bongaigaon Refineries

About The Company

A good company in the refinery segment and stock has been popular among the investor in the capital markets.

About The Results

The company has posted results for the third quarter ended 31^st Dec 2008 reported a 24% drop in net sales on a YoY at Rs.1112.07 crore and this fall is precipitated further at 49% on a QoQ. This fall is despite the company stating that its refinery capacity utilisation during the quarter was 95.1% as compared to 79.1% during Q3FY08 and this higher capacity utilization was due to higher availability of crude oil. DMT and Polyester Staple Fibre (PSF) unit continue to remain under shutdown during the period due to economic reasons. The reformer unit of Xyelene plant continues to operate on Motor Spirit (MS) mode and consequently the same is being treated as a part of Refinery Unit. Obviously these factors pulled down the realisations despite higher utilization.

The company posted a net loss of Rs.224.09 crore as against a net profit of Rs.84.90 crore in Q3FY09 and net loss in Q2FY09 was at Rs.81.15 crore. This was mainly on account of the Rs.350 crore lost due to inventory. The GRM from April to December was marginally lower at 5.3, which in Q2FY09 was at 5.4.

What is notable is that it’s operating expenses for the current third quarter has come down drastically. This is obviously due to the fall in the price of crude. It has come down by 40% on a QoQ and on a YoY it remains steady with a rise of just 2.47%. In the coming months, commodity experts confer that price of crude is expected to go up, not to three digit numbers but surely higher than the levels it is at today.

Clue in The Stock

The merger with Indian Oil Corporation? Subsequent to the approval by the shareholders and creditors of the company to the Scheme of amalgamation for merger of Bongaigaon Refinery with IOC, a confirmation petition was filed by the company with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). The final hearing before MCA has been concluded on November 19, 2008 but the order in the matter has been reserved by MCA.

About The Stock

A shrewd eye to be kept on Indian markets and some stake could be added up on dips.

Disclaimer : I do not have any personal holding in this stock

My View On Jet Airways

About The Company

The high cost flight counted in privileged class of flying is passsing under a very bad phase. The whole aviation sector as a whole is under the influence of slowdown and finding difficult path for the survival itself.

About the Results

Jet Airways has announced its third quarter performance .Its Q3FY09 performance was dismal to say the least. It posted a loss of Rs 214 crore in the third quarter, which is more than double the net loss of Rs 91 crore recorded in Q3FY08. This loss was despite the fact that net sales rose to Rs.2908 crore from Rs 2,426 crore year-on-year. Yet, the silver lining here is that QoQ, the net loss has come down 44%.

The most apparent reason for the loss was obviously the high fuel and other operating costs and the matter was further aggravated due to lower load factors. The company also had to big price due to the launch of its international activities which hiked the costs. It also posted a forex loss of Rs.49 crore.

On the international front, the company cancelled its loss making route of Amritsar-London and also San Francisco via Shangha. It is also planning to cancel Bangalore to Brussels. The profitable sector is to the Gulf, SAARC region and ASEAN.

It is also working out lease agreements, it has already leased three long haul flights to Turkish Airlines, two to Gulf Air and is also close to finalising lease for four more longhaul aircrafts thus eliminating surplus capacity.

To cut costs, the company did want to slash jobs but was not allowed to do so due to large scale public demonstrations against the company. It then announced salary cuts but is yet to be implemented. It has also renegotiated agreements for goods and services and all these measures would hopefully bring down the costs in Q4.

Yes, the slowdown would impact the load factor but the company hopes to offset this with lower ATF. And more importantly, the company has clarified that it does not face any liquidity crunch as it has received close to Rs.1250 crore to meet its working capital needs from various banks and in the coming weeks, it also plans to go for another term loan of Rs.750 crore. Interest outgo would thus burgeon and is a cause for concern. Interest outgo in Q3FY09 was at Rs.205.93 crore as against Rs.156.46 crore in Q2FY09 and 155.41crore in Q3FY08.

About The Stock

The stock has failed to performed ever since it has entered into the capital market.The stock didn't show any significant rise even when the company was in profit and the performance of the stock has been so bad that it failed to touched even the issue price.The investor in the stock has been literally looted. The conclusion is clear that one should stay away from this stock in aviation sector.

Disclaimer : I never had any holding in this stock