Institutional Equities Initiating Coverage
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Institutional Equities Indian Hotels Company 25 March 2019 Reuters: IHTL.NS; Bloomberg: IH: IN 1. Restructuring Story Aided By Favourable Industry Environment BUY We initiate coverage on Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) with a Buy rating and a target price of Rs195 based on 21x FY21E EV/EBITDA. Our optimism on the stock is based on: 1. Cyclical upturn in the Sector: Hotel hotel sector along with favourable demand-supply dynamics which are expected to drive the occupancy rate and average room rate (ARR). 2. Aggressive restructuring strategy focused on CMP: Rs148 improving EBITDA margin from 18% in FY16 to 25% by FY23E. The key pillars of the aggressive strategy ‘Aspirations 2022’ are: 1. Expansion of the number of rooms with the shift to an asset-light Target Price: Rs195 model leading to increase in management contracts. 2. Cost optimisation. 3. Better management of brands. 4. Leveraging on the Tata Group’s strengths. 5. Sale of non-core assets and monetisation of Upside: 32% the balance sheet. Amit Agarwal We have valued IHCL at 21x FY21E EV/EBITDA and arrived at a target price of Rs195, which implies an upside of 32% from the current market price. Research Analyst Cyclical upturn in the industry led to improvement in the occupancy rate: Industry experts are of the [email protected] opinion that the demand-supply scenario is changing favorably for the hotel industry, with overall supply +91-22-6273 8033 expected to post a CAGR of 4% (FY18-FY22E). Demand is expected to post a CAGR of 6% (FY18- FY22E). The changing supply-demand mix led to an increase in the overall occupancy rate from 57% in Key Data FY13 to 68% in FY18 and is expected to rise further. Pan-India strategy focused across different segments: IHCL is focused across all verticals ranging from Current Shares O/S (man) 1,189.3 5- star to 3-star, implying that it caters to both domestic and foreign customers. The company currently has Mkt Cap (Rsbn/US$bn) 176.2/2.6 hotels spread across four brands which include: 1. Taj 2. Selections. 3. Vivanta. 4. Ginger. As of February 2019, IHCL had 17,741 rooms through 148 hotels spread across India and abroad. Approximately 85% of 52 Wk H / L (Rs) 156/109 the rooms are in India. Further, 27% of total hotel rooms are under management contracts. Changing Daily Vol. (3M NSE Avg.) 1,557,692 Initiating Coverage Initiating attitude and rising penchant to travel amid rising salaries is expected to maintain strong growth in demand. Strong cost control measures and high operating leverage leads to rising EBITDA margin: Our analysis on per room basis shows that operating expenses posted a five-year (FY13-18) CAGR of 0.1%. Share holding (%) 1QFY19 2QFY19 3QFY19 Increase in number of rooms together with strong cost control led to five-year EBITDA (FY13-FY18) CAGR Promoters 39.1 39.1 39.1 of 4.5%. EBITDA margin increased from 14% in FY13 to 16% in FY18. We expect the EBITDA margin to rise to 23% in FY21E and expect EBITDA to post a three-year CAGR (FY18-FY21E) of 23% aided further Institutions 40.5 41.8 42.2 by the rise in Revpar. Non-Institutions 20.4 19.1 18.7 Healthy balance sheet with negative working capital management: IHCL has improved its balance sheet in the past three years with the decline in its net debt-to-equity ratio from 2x in FY15 to 0.5x in FY18. One Year Indexed Stock Performance It also has negative working capital. With the planned strategy as given above and improvement in industry fundamentals, we expect the net debt-to-equity ratio to decline to 0.4x in FY21E. We expect the rising 130 operating income to help maintain a comfortable interest coverage ratio. 120 Strong growth in operating cash flow: We expect operating cash flow to post a three-year CAGR (FY18- 110 FY21E) of 30% because of strong growth in earnings and consistent negative working capital. Historically, we note that operating cash flow has been volatile with a low of (Rs996mn) in FY15 and a high of 100 90 Rs12,002mn in FY16. Earnings to post 94% CAGR (FY18-FY21E): We expect a sharp increase in earnings driven primarily by 80 the cyclical upswing in the industry, leading to a rise in RevPar aided by a sharp increase in total room Mar-18 May-18 Jul-18 Sep-18 Nov-18 Jan-19 Mar-19 INDIAN HOTELS CO Nifty 50 inventory. The combined impact of strong revenue growth and cost control is expected to lead to strong earnings growth. We assign Buy rating to IHCL with a target price of Rs195: Our target price of Rs195 is based on 21x Price Performance (%) FY21E EV/EBITDA, which is supported by EBITDA CAGR of 23% over FY18-FY21E. Our valuation is driven by the cyclical upswing in the hotel sector with improvement in RevPar, and increase in the number 1 M 6 M 1 Yr of rooms driving higher revenues. Higher revenues, together with a relatively muted increase in costs and Indian Hotels 4.2 18.1 16.2 high operational leverage, are expected to lead to strong growth in EBITDA. Our optimism is further supported by a healthy balance sheet and negative working capital. Nifty Index 4.4 2.7 13.6 Source: Bloomberg Y/E March (Rsmn) FY17 FY18 FY19E FY20E FY21E Revenues 40,103 41,036 43,624 48,325 53,926 YoY (%) (0.3) 2.3 6.3 10.8 11.6 EBITDA 6,096 6,703 7,540 9,417 12,528 EBITDA Margin (%) 15.2 16.3 17.3 19.5 23.2 PAT (832) 632 1,656 2,694 4,736 YoY (%) NA NA 161.9 62.6 75.8 EPS (Rs) (0.84) 0.53 1.39 2.26 3.98 RoE (%) (2.5) 2.4 3.1 4.3 6.5 EV/EBITDA (x) 32.0 27.2 20.0 16.6 13.7 P/E (x) NA 174.5 130.5 90.3 56.5 Source: Company, Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities Research Institutional Equities Investment summary We initiate coverage on IHCL with a Buy rating. Our optimism on the stock is driven by the following factors: Cyclical upswing in hotel industry to drive room revenues: The hotel industry is showing clear signs of revival and we believe the cyclical upswing is based on a favorable demand-supply balance. The weakness in the sector was caused by demand-supply imbalance in FY07-FY17. During the period, while demand registered a CAGR of 12.4%, supply witnessed a CAGR of 13%, creating a demand-supply mismatch. The room occupancy rate declined to 57% in FY13 from 69% in FY07. The imbalance has now started reversing. The occupancy rate increased to 65% in FY17. If history is an indicator, then in the previous upcycle (FY03-FY08), ARR posted a CAGR of 20% and the occupancy rate registered a CAGR of 4%. Company’s strategy as enunciated in ‘Aspirations 2022’ focuses on improving EBITDA margin to 25% by FY23 from 17% in FY18: The main pillars of the strategy are: 1. Shift to an asset-light model by increasing room inventory through management contracts. 2. Cost optimisation. 3. Manage brands more effectively. 4. Leverage of the parent Tata group’s strengths and explore synergies within the group. 5. Monetisation through sale of lease back of hotels, sale of non-core land and strategic partnership. Strategy of cost control amid rising revenues to drive EBITDA CAGR of 23% over FY18-FY21E: We expect IHCL revenues to post a CAGR of 9% over FY18-FY21E. However, with strong cost control, we expect operating costs to post a relatively lower CAGR of 6.5%. This will help drive EBITDA CAGR of 23% over the same period. Our per room analysis of the income statement clearly indicates that the company has strong cost control measures. Healthy balance sheet supported by comfortable net debt-to-equity ratio, negative working capital: IHCL has a healthy balance sheet with a net debt-to-equity of ratio of 0.5x in FY18. We expect this ratio to decline to 0.4x by FY21E. We also note that the rising operating income is expected to improve the interest coverage ratio from 1.4x in FY18 to 3.8x in FY21E. Further, the company also has negative working capital which helped reduce the stress on the balance sheet. Strong operating cash flow to fund capex for expansion: IHCL had a volatile cash flow in the past few years. In the recent past, in FY15, the company had a negative operating cash flow while the highest cash flow was in FY16. We expect the earnings growth and negative working capital to help increase operating cash flow CAGR (FY18-FY21E) to 30%. Attractive valuation, given the strong anticipated growth: Our target price of Rs195 on IHCL is based on 21x FY21E EV/EBITDA which is supported by EBITDA CAGR of 23% over FY18-FY21E. Our valuation is driven by the cyclical upswing in the hotel sector with improvement in RevPar, and increase in the number of rooms driving higher revenues. Higher revenues, together with relatively muted increase in costs and high operational leverage, are expected to lead to strong growth in EBITDA. Our optimism is supported by a healthy balance sheet and negative working capital. We further derive comfort from the expected improvement in balance sheet health and the net debt-to-equity ratio likely to decline from 0.5x in FY18 to 0.4x in FY21E.