HCL Technologies 16 January 2021
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Institutional Equities HCL Technologies 16 January 2021 Reuters: HCLT.BO; Bloomberg: HCLT IN Tepid 4Q guidance not different from that of Infosys’; Products look up BUY HCL Technologies (HCLT) delivered above-guidance revenue growth and margins for 3QFY21. Revenue grew by 3.5% CC QoQ (guidance was 1.5-2.5%) and EBIT margin came in at 22.9%, which Sector: Information Technology was an outsized beat versus our estimate of 21%. The 1-month run-up of ~16% in the stock price was likely factoring in a bigger beat, especially after superlative 3Q of TCS and Infosys. The 2-3% CMP: Rs990 QoQ guidance of 4Q (including 1% from DWS acquisition) was a tad disappointing in the context of high expectations, but in line with the 0-2% implied guidance of Infosys. TCV growth of 13% (all Target Price: Rs1,163 of it net new) is in line with that of TCS (total TCV), but tepid compared to scorching 10x growth shown by Infosys (net new). The tepid guidance for 4Q seems likely due to seasonality of Upside: 17% products. HCLT is optimistic about demand and expects accelerated order bookings in the coming quarters. Among the big positives in 3Q included 25% growth in Mode-2 (Digital business) and Girish Pai 13% growth in the July-December 2020 of the products & platforms business (the first comparable Head of Research period on a YoY basis post IBM product purchase). The latter in our view is very important as [email protected] general market expectation was for a flat growth or decline pre-pandemic. HCLT management stated that the next 5 years for the industry will be better than the last 5 and believes that it will be +91-22-6273 8017 among the growth leaders. We believe that HCLT will be an outsized beneficiary of the digital infrastructure build out that has been catalyzed by the pandemic and which will likely be a 3-5 year Key Data opportunity. Industry believes that only 20% of Global-3000 infrastructure has likely moved to the cloud with another 60% likely within the next 3-5 years. HCLT has the highest leverage to this Current Shares O/S (mn) 2,713.7 opportunity among the Indian IT Services players with what we estimate to be a 30% revenue Mkt Cap6 (Rsbn/US$bn) 2,686/36.8 exposure. Digital foundation opportunity (as HCLT calls it) has been flagged off by multiple players, including TCS (first wave of its three wave narrative) and Accenture (through creation of a 52 Wk H / L (Rs) 1,099/375 ‘Cloud First’ unit). Also, some of the products acquired from IBM focused on E-commerce, Daily Vol. (3M NSE Avg.) 8,667,205 Security and Collaboration, including Commerce, Appscan, Big Fix and Connections are likely seeing significant traction. We believe that street will attribute a greater value to its products business compared to pre-pandemic days when it was accorded a significant negative value, Price Performance (%) leading to HCLT trading at a significant discount to its peers. We have held a different view (Call 1 M 6 M 1 Yr Option). Post 3QFY21, we have tweaked our estimates modestly. We have raised our effective tax rate a tad, impacting earnings. We have also raised our target PE multiple for HCLT consequent to HCL Technologies 11.8 57.7 66.8 the target PE multiple upgrade for our sector benchmark TCS (26.25x versus 25x earlier). However, Nifty Index 4.9 32.4 16.8 we continue to keep the discount to TCS’ target PE multiple constant at 25%. This leads us to the target price of Rs1163 (19.7x FY23EPS). We retain our ‘Buy’ rating. We believe that the strong Source: Bloombergt growth in the products business could lead to PE discount to TCS narrowing significantly. 3QFY21 Result Result Update 3QFY21 Products business is seeing good traction: While all products have seen growth (YoY) in 3Q, there are some products growing significantly faster than others. HCLT indicated good interest in e-Commerce, security and low-code-no-code related products. HCLT says that it is quite confident about products being a growth business and believes that many of them are mission critical and also very sticky. In terms of synergies, HCLT indicated a win of US$30mn in 3Q for providing services on top of a product that it sold to a customer. Booking momentum was very strong for the Products business. Net new TCV of deals grew at 2.5x YoY (US$91mn). With momentum being seen in this part of the business, HCLT indicated that it may invest a bit more in SGA and that could lead to lower EBIT margin for a few quarters segment. Y/E March (Rsmn) 3QFY20 2QFY21 3QFY21 YoY (%) QoQ (%) 3QFY21E Dev (%) Net Sales (USD mn) 2,543 2,507 2,617 2.9 4.4 2,579 1.5 Net Sales 181,350 185,940 193,020 6.4 3.8 190,100 1.5 Employee Costs 111,760 109,290 111,940 0.2 2.4 113,703 (1.6) % of Sales 61.6 58.8 58.0 - - 59.8 - SG&A 24,890 27,140 26,650 7.1 (1.8) 27,140 (1.8) % of Sales 13.7 14.6 13.8 - - 14.3 - Depreciation and Amortisation 8,000 9,350 10,270 28.4 9.8 9,314 10.3 % of Sales 4.4 5.0 5.3 - - 4.9 - EBIT 36,700 40,160 44,160 20.3 10.0 39,944 10.6 EBIT Margin (%) 20.2 21.6 22.9 - - 21.0 - Other Income 540 1,390 1,240 129.6 (10.8) 1,390 (10.8) Forex Gain/(Loss) 130 (30) 20 - - 0.0 - PBT 37,370 41,520 45,420 21.5 9.4 41,334 9.9 Provision for Tax 6,910 9,990 5,440 (21.3) (45.5) 7,440 (26.9) Effective Tax Rate 18.5 24.1 12.0 - - 18.0 - Minority share in Profit / Loss 80 110 160 - - 110.0 - PAT (Reported) 30,380 31,420 39,820 31.1 26.7 33,784 17.9 NPM (%) 16.8 16.9 20.6 - - 17.8 - Source: Company, Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities Research Institutional Equities Exhibit 1: Key financials Y/E March (Rsmn) FY19 FY20 FY21E FY22E FY23E Revenue (Rsmn) 604,280 706,780 753,693 867,144 977,785 YoY Growth (%) 19.5 17.0 6.6 15.1 12.8 EBIT (Rsmn) 118,210 138,530 162,078 180,532 202,498 EBIT (%) 19.6 19.6 21.5 20.8 20.7 Adj. PAT (Rsmn) 101,230 110,620 137,645 142,258 160,319 YoY Growth (%) 15.3 9.3 24.4 3.4 12.7 FDEPS (Rs) 36.8 40.8 50.7 52.4 59.1 ROE (%) 25.8 23.7 24.0 21.0 20.4 ROCE (%) 27.4 25.2 24.3 24.0 23.8 Pre Tax ROIC (%) 36.3 33.3 32.7 33.6 35.8 P/E(x) 26.9 24.3 19.5 18.9 16.8 P/BV (x) 6.5 5.2 4.3 3.7 3.2 Source: Company, Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities Research Exhibit 2: Change in our estimates New Old % Change FY21E FY22E FY23E FY21E FY22E FY23E FY21E FY22E FY23E INR/USD 74.2 75.2 76.8 74.2 75.2 76.8 0.0 - - USD Revenue (USD mn) 10,161 11,528 12,738 10,075 11,514 12,704 0.9 0.1 0.3 Revenue (Rsmn) 753,693 867,144 977,785 747,222 866,108 975,203 0.9 0.1 0.3 EBIT (Rsmn) 162,078 180,532 202,498 155,265 178,361 199,934 4.4 1.2 1.3 EBIT Margin (%) 21.5 20.8 20.7 20.8 20.6 20.5 - - - PAT (Rsmn) 137,645 142,258 160,319 127,179 146,237 165,119 8.2 (2.7) (2.9) FDEPS (Rs) 50.7 52.4 59.1 46.9 53.9 60.8 8.2 (2.7) (2.9) Source: Company, Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities Research 2 HCL Technologies Institutional Equities Our view on the Indian IT services sector: In our sector updates of 6th September 2020 (Rising monetary and digital tides lifting most boats), 28th September 2020 (Medium term commentary turning more positive)and 28 December 2020(Looks stronger near term; Raising target prices), we upgraded our view to ‘neutral’ on the sector from a ‘cautious’ one held for the last many years on the back of both higher earnings and higher target PE multiples. The earnings uplift(~2x of the growth seen in FY15-FY20 timeframe) is coming from an expectation of 400-600bps pick-up in organic revenue growth over FY21-FY23 against the one seen in the FY15-FY20 timeframe (6-8% organic USD terms) along with an improvement in margins. The revenue acceleration is coming from increased overall spending on IT, increased spending on Digital by clients and a move towards greater outsourcing (driven by lack of internal talent), and which in our view will likely be compressed in a shorter period of time than was expected in the past. The demand uplift is more widespread than seen in the past and is a ‘rising-tide-lifting-most-boats’ kind of situation. Reasons for change in customer behavior, in our view are: (1) Strong need for digital transformation, not only to structurally cut costs, but also to deliver contact-less consumer and employee experiences, driven by the nature of the pandemic.