Equitas Holdings
BSE SENSEX
28,179
S&P CNX
8,709
24 October 2016
Update
| Sector:
Financials
CMP: INR177
TP: INR240 (+36%)
Buy
Investing for the brighter future
Takeaways from 2QFY17 conference call
Stock Info
Bloomberg
Equity Shares (m)
52-Week Range (INR)
1, 6, 12 Rel. Per (%)
M.Cap. (INR b)/ (USD b)
Avg Val. (INR m)
Free float (%)
EQUITAS IN
335.7
206 / 134
-1/19/-
62.1/0.9
741
100.0
Financials Snapshot (INR b)
Y/E March
2017E 2018E 2019E
NII
9.0
11.9
15.7
OP
4.5
5.1
6.9
NP
2.3
2.5
3.3
NIM (%)
12.6
10.3
9.3
EPS (INR)
6.7
7.4
9.8
EPS Gr. (%)
8.5
9.7
32.8
BV/Sh. (INR)
68
75
85
ABV/Sh. (INR)
66
73
81
RoE (%)
12.5
10.3
12.2
RoA (%)
2.6
1.8
1.7
Valuations
P/E(X)
27.5
25.1
18.9
P/BV (X)
2.7
2.5
2.2
P/ABV (X)
2.8
2.5
2.3
Stock Performance (1-year)
Equitas Holdings
Sensex - Rebased
210
180
150
120
90
Equitas’ robust corporate governance standards and risk management architecture offer
it a strong competitive advantage. While initial investments in people, processes and
branches would be high for its small finance bank, management believes this will be the
key in building a successful/sustainable business model and achieving first-mover
advantage. Focus on diversification on liability and asset side increases our confidence on
the business. In our view, liability diversification will partially help the company to absorb
higher branch-related costs. Management remains comfortable on asset quality and is
prudently slowing down growth in MF business. While no specific profitability guidance
was shared, we believe our estimate of ~1.8% RoA for FY18 has upside risk. Reiterate
Buy.
Significant investment in liability branches
Management plans to open 412 (unchanged v/s earlier guidance) liability branches
(approval in place from the RBI) over next 12 months. Key senior-level hiring for
liability branches is already done. Management expects average 8-9 employees per
branch, initial cost of branch opening to be INR3.5-4m (to be capitalized) and
INR3.5-5m (depending upon location) regular cost. Of the expected ~3,500 new
employee addition (50-55% to be sales personnel) for liability branches, ~40% were
already on payrolls as of September 2016. Technology-related cost is already
capitalized. Of the expected branch expansion in the first month (September),
Equitas opened three branches and one zonal office. Significant investments into
franchise are already factored in our estimates, and we expect opex to increase
65%/40%+ in FY17/18.
Liability diversification a key focus area
For a bank, no fresh NCD issue is permitted (current will be grandfathered) and
thus its share will come down on maturity (average NCD tenure 22-23 months,
average CP tenure 7-8 months). Of current loans from banks, 22% is refinanced
loans, whereas balance is from banks. High-cost bank loans have already been
repaid in 2Q, and prepayment penalty is thus unlikely to be meaningful. Equitas
expects deposits (mainly bulk deposits initially) to gain share in the liability mix.
Please refer to our report
dated 24 October 2016
Share of bulk deposits to go up
Bulk deposits are likely to replace wholesale borrowings initially; incremental cost
of raising those is ~100bp lower than current cost. The company is seeing traction
at 8-8.5% levels, and for some tenors, Equitas offers additional ~0.5% to attract
customers. The immediate focus of its liability branches is to generate float/term
deposits rather than fee income.
Investors are advised to refer through important disclosures made at the last page of the Research Report.
Motilal Oswal research is available on www.motilaloswal.com/Institutional-Equities, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, Factset and S&P Capital.
Alpesh Mehta
(Alpesh.Mehta@MotilalOswal.com); +91 22 6129 1526
Sunesh Khanna
(Sunesh.Khanna@MotilalOswal.com); +91 22 6129 1540