Institutional EYE Special Report | 2014
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Institutional EYE Special report | 2014 Dividends: Companies that can pay more The market as a whole has the ability to pay higher dividends. IiAS’ study of the S&P BSE 500 conservatively identifies 77 companies that can pay more. The incremental dividend from these companies alone could aggregate almost ₹360 bn. Going forward, while finalizing its voting recommendations, IiAS will highlight companies that can - and should, pay-out more. In our earlier report ‘Dividends: Is there room for a larger payout?’ we discussed the general patterns and trends of dividend payout of S&P BSE500 companies between 2007-08 and 2011-12. In this report, we have identified companies in the S&P BSE500 index (- excluding banks and NBFCs) based on 2012-13 financials that we believe can and should pay higher dividends. Most companies tend to keep cash on their balance sheets given the complexity and uncertainty of fundraising. On the other hand, higher dividend payouts increase shareholder interest in the stock – and to that extent make fund raising easier. Dividend payments demonstrate a company’s confidence to continually generate earnings in future and show that its earnings are real. In our earlier report, we highlighted that dividend as being one of the factors that has a bearing on company valuations i.e. higher the payout ratio, higher is the valuation. Indian companies tend to be controlled about dividend payments, and hold the purse strings tightly. The excess cash is usually invested in bank deposits and debt mutual funds. As these cash holdings increase in a company’s books, its return ratios generally deteriorate. Additionally, there is enough anecdotal This is the second in a series evidence that this excess cash leads to sub-optimal capital allocation decisions. of two special reports on dividends. The market as a whole has the ability to step up dividends. In this report we Related Reports have conservatively identified 77 out of the S&P BSE 500 companies that can pay Dividends: Is there room higher dividend (see chart 1). While some of these companies already pay for a larger payout? healthy dividends (- an average of 27.2% of their profits for 2012-13), they have headroom to pay still more. Our methodology is discussed later in Annex A. Some of the key takeaways from this report are: Incremental dividend payout from the 77 companies identified could aggregate to almost ₹360 bn., after taxes, almost twice the amount these companies actually paid out in FY13 (- or ₹194 bn). Three companies can pay over ₹ 100 per share to shareholders without any stress. These are M R F, Oracle Financial Services Software and Shree Cements. Three companies can pay between ₹50.1 and ₹100 as dividends Write to us incrementally. These are Bosch, Eicher Motors and Maruti Suzuki. solutions@iias.in Subscribe to Note: In preparing this report IiAS has relied on latest available year-end data provided by IiAS Research CMIE. Unless specified, all numbers refer to aggregate data of 77 companies. Standalone company data has been used for analysis. Dividend payments are after taxes. FY14 Interim dividends are not considered. Dividends iias.in 1 Institutional EYE Special report | 2014 Companies such as Whirlpool India, Jubilant Foodworks, Gujarat Pipavav, Oracle Financial Services Software, and Just Dial Ltd paid no dividends in 2013, despite being profitable. We believe that as the foreign parents take money by way of royalty, they are less sensitive to the amount of dividend declared by the Indian business. For example Maruti Suzuki’s dividend payout at 12% was low in comparison to the S&P BSE Sensex’s median payout at 27%. In absolute amounts it paid ₹2,828 mn as dividends, of which 56% went to its foreign promoter, Suzuki Motor Corporation. In contrast the company paid ₹24,538 mn - which halved its profits after tax - as royalties to Suzuki. This is discussed in Annex 3. While the regulations in India do not mandate companies to declare a dividend policy, in Brazil (- where governance laws are far less progressive than those in India) regulations require that the bye-laws of a company mention minimum percentage of dividends from its net income that would be distributed to shareholders on an annual basis (- read more) This report, like the previous one, argues that companies follow a transparent mechanism for declaring dividends and retaining earnings accrued in a given financial year - whether the earnings are being retained for future capital expenditures, working capital or for retiring debt. Such details and expected timelines for cash utilization should be enclosed in the company’s annual filings. IiAS recommends that all companies articulate a dividend policy as well as a ‘retention approval’ as part of their charter documents. Under this companies should disclose how much cash they intend to retain and the rationale for doing so and pay-out the balance to shareholders as dividends: this cash belongs to all shareholders and is not for company managements to keep. Chart 1: Bucketing on incremental DPS – 77 companies 60 (in ₹) 57 50 40 30 companies 20 14 10 3 3 Number of of Number 0 > 100 50.1-100 15.1 - 50 1 - 15 Incremental Dividend per share (₹) Source: CMIE, IiAS Research. Dividends are after distribution tax. Dividends iias.in 2 Institutional EYE Special report | 2014 Incremental Payouts, after taxes – 77 Companies (All figures in ₹) A I A Engineering 4.0 Infotech Enterprises 4.5 Monsanto India 22.0 Maruti Suzuki 8.0 Oracle Finan. Serv. - Ajanta Pharma 4.2 Ipca Laboratories 4.0 H C L Technologies 12.0 Eicher Motors 30.0 Shree Cement 20.0 Amara Raja Batteries 2.5 J B Chemicals & Pharma 3.0 A C C 30.0 Bosch 60.0 M R F 30.0 Asian Paints 4.6 Jubilant Foodworks - V A Tech Wabag 7.0 Astral Poly Technik 0.5 Just Dial - Wabco India 5.0 Bajaj Auto 45.0 K P I T Technologies 0.9 P C Jeweller 1.0 Bajaj Holdings & Invst 25.0 Kirloskar Oil Engines 5.0 Abbott India 17.0 Balmer Lawrie & Co 17.6 M O I L 5.5 F A G Bearings India 5.0 Bata India 6.0 Mahindra & Mahindra 13.0 Nestle India 48.5 Bharti Infratel 5.3 Mphasis 17.0 Mindtree 11.9 Biocon 7.5 Nesco 3.5 Kaveri Seed Co. 15.9 Clariant Chemicals (India) 27.5 Neyveli Lignite Corpn. 2.8 Infosys 42.0 Colgate-Palmolive (India) 28.0 P T C India 1.6 Glaxosmithkline Consumer 45.0 D B Corp 5.5 Petronet L N G 2.5 Reliance Industries 8.1 Divi'S Laboratories 15.0 Phoenix Mills 2.2 Eclerx Services 25.1 Pidilite Industries 2.6 Emami 5.3 S J V N 1.0 Engineers India 6.0 S K F India 7.5 Entertainment Network 1.0 S R F 10.0 Eros International Media 1.5 Sanofi India 33.0 F D C 2.3 Symphony 6.5 Finolex Industries 5.5 Thermax 7.0 Glenmark Pharmaceuticals 2.0 Titan Company 2.1 > ₹50 to Gujarat Gas Co. 7.0 Ultratech Cement 9.0 > ₹100 > ₹15 ₹100 Gujarat Pipavav Port - Unichem Laboratories 4.5 to ₹50 Gujarat State Petronet 1.0 Whirlpool Of India - Hindustan Zinc 3.1 Wipro 7.0 Indraprastha Gas 5.5 Zydus Wellness 6.0 Info Edge (India) 1.0 DPS (₹) 2012 -13 ₹ 1 - 15 Dividends iias.in 3 Institutional EYE Special report | 2014 IiAS View Companies should dividend-out their excess earnings on a yearly basis, post their forecasted capital expenditure, incremental working capital requirements and debt repayments. Accumulating excess cash and non-core investments on companies’ books typically lead to lower return ratios. Companies with high cash balances tend to have lower balance sheet discipline. While the new Companies Act is progressive in comparison to the prevailing regulations in most countries, it must encourage companies to declare a dividend policy. Companies should spell out the minimum dividend they will pay-out as a percentage of its earnings. The converse of the dividend policy is the ‘retention approval.’ We strongly believe that companies should obtain shareholder approval to retain cash specifying the rationale for doing so, and pay-out the balance to shareholders as dividends: this cash belongs to all shareholders and is not for company managements to keep. IiAS will review cash and non-core investments on the on the company’s books and highlight cases where companies can pay higher dividends. Dividends iias.in 4 Institutional EYE Special report | 2014 Annexure A Methodology: We have used the following approach to identify companies in the S&P BSE500 Filters – BSE500 index that can pay higher dividends based on FY13 data. Companies 1. From the S&P BSE500 index we filtered out banks and NBFCs. This reduced the companies from 500 to 422. All except NBFC, Banking 2. We have considered only those companies that have profitability of ₹500 mn or above. Further we have considered only those companies that have a positive net cash flow from operations for FY13. This reduces the companies from 422 to 279. 3. Further, we have considered only those companies that have positive operational cash flows even after providing for 75% of their three year 422 Companies average capex. We have deducted the 2012-13 equity and preference dividends paid from this. This reduces the number of companies to 189. 4. High financial leverage impacts a company’s earnings and cash flows and consequently its ability to pay out dividends. Given this, we have excluded companies that have debt/ equity greater than 1X and debt/ EBITDA of Capex more than 2X.