Q3FY21 Result Review TP Rs735 Key Stock Data Axis Bank (AXSB) BUY CMP Rs632 Bloomberg / Reuters AXSB IN /AXBK.BO Potential upside / downside 16% Sector Banking Higher write offs supported NPA; Restructured assets @ 0.42% Previous Rating BUY Shares o/s (mn) 3,062 Summary V/s Consensus Market cap. (Rs mn) 1,934,705 Axis Bank’ asset quality deteriorated sequentially with GNPA inched up to 4.55% (as per IRAC EPS (Rs) FY21E FY22E FY23E Market cap. (US$ mn) 26,532 norms) vs 4.28% led by higher slippage ratio (4.6% vs 1.1% QoQ); however, GNPA improved as 3-m daily avg Trd value (Rs mn) 3,730.0 against 5.0% YoY led by higher write offs (Rs42.6bn vs Rs27.9bn YoY). BB & below book declined IDBI Capital 17.2 29.0 37.6 by 5% QoQ and restructured assets stood at 0.42% of customer assets as against earlier Consensus 24.3 41.6 55.0 52-week high / low Rs761/285 estimates of 1.7% are key positives during the quarter. PAT declined by 37% YoY (down 34% % difference (29.1) (30.3) (31.6) Sensex / Nifty 47,410 / 13,968 QoQ) led by higher provisions (up 33% YoY) and employee expenses (up 23% YoY). NII grew by 14% YoY led by improvement in NIMs at 3.59% (3.57% YoY). PPoP grew by 6% YoY (down 12% QoQ) led by increase in cost to income ratio (45% vs 44% YoY). With management change behind, strong Shareholding Pattern (%) Relative to Sensex (%) capital in place and focus on secured retail portfolio, AXISB would see better revival in growth within Promoters 13.9 130.0 the sector. We re-iterate our ‘BUY’ rating with new TP of Rs. 735 (earlier Rs.590) valuing it at 1.8x (earlier 1.6x) P/ABV FY23 as revival in the economy is better than earlier estimated. FII 51.0 115.0 DII 20.2 100.0 Key Highlights and Investment Rationale Public 14.9 85.0 Retail growth further slows down; corporate book (including TLTRO) growth also slows 70.0 down: Credit growth slows down to 6% YoY (11% Q2FY21) due to lower growth in corporate 55.0 book. Retail portfolio growth slowed down to 9% YoY vs 12% Q1FY21; corporate book Price Performance (%) (including TLTRO) grew at 1% YoY (vs 22% YoY Q1FY21). Retail disbursements for the quarter 40.0 -1m -3m -12m were at all-time highs. Disbursements in secured segments like HL, LAP & Auto grew 23% YoY, Jul-20 Jan-20 Jan-21 Jun-20 Oct-19 Oct-20 Apr-20 Feb-20 Sep-20 Dec-19 Dec-20 Aug-20 Nov-19 Nov-20 Mar-20 11% YoY and 10% YoY respectively, SBB disbursements grew 35% YoY. Retail book accounted Absolute 3.5 24.3 (14.6) May-20 for 55% of the net advances of the Bank. The corporate lending portfolio continues to shift Rel to Sensex 2.6 7.3 (29.8) Axis Bank Ltd. Sensex towards better rated clients with 83% of corporate exposure now rated ‘A’ or better with 94% of incremental sanctions in Q3FY21 being to corporates rated A- and above. Deposits during the Financial snapshot (Rs mn) quarter grew by 11% with CASA at 42% vs 40% QoQ. CASA+RTD now form 86% of deposits. Year FY2019 FY2020 FY2021E FY2022E FY2023E Higher slippages; Restructured book at 0.42%: Asset quality deteriorated with GNPA (as per NII 217,082 252,062 293,202 324,156 357,186 IRAC norms) at 4.55% vs 4.28% QoQ; led by higher slippages which increased by 328% QoQ to Rs.67.4bn. Slippage ratio increased to 4.6% (annualized) vs 1.1% QoQ. PCR (excluding Net Profit 46,771 16,273 52,583 88,660 115,031 technical write offs) declined to 75% vs 77% QoQ. BB & below book declined by 5% QoQ and EPS (Rs) 18.2 5.8 17.2 29.0 37.6 restructured assets stood at 0.42% of customer assets as against earlier estimates of 1.7% are ABV (Rs) 215.4 267.9 353.2 378.9 409.5 key positives during the quarter. Bank has prudently built up a cumulative provision (standard PER (x) 34.7 109.6 36.8 21.8 16.8 + additional other than NPA) translate to 2.08% of standard loans, which provides a little comfort. On an aggregated basis (specific+ standard+ additional + Covid), coverage ratio stands P/ABV (x) 2.9 2.4 1.8 1.7 1.5 at 116% of GNPA as of Q3FY21. ROE (%) 7.2 2.1 5.3 7.5 9.0 Outlook: Management has proactively provided for higher stress in certain sectors which ROA (%) 0.6 0.2 0.6 0.9 1.0 possess risk of slipping into NPLs over the next few quarters from the watchlist. Post near GNPA (%) 5.8 5.1 4.8 4.3 4.1 term stress taking shape, we expect the book to normalize and improve thereon. Bank has NNPA (%) 2.3 1.6 1.2 1.0 1.0 one of the better liability franchises with strong CASA ratio at ~40 % which suffices well in CAR (%) 15.8 17.5 19.0 18.4 17.9 current environment. Source: Company; IDBI Capital Research Bunty Chawla | [email protected] | +91-22-2217 1814 Nikhil Vaishnav | [email protected] | +91-22-2217 1819 January 28, 2021 Axis Bank | Q3FY21 Result Review Conference Call Highlights During quarter opened 1.7mn new liability accounts while in 9MFY21 total lead to 4.8mn accounts. Quarterly retail disbursement was up by 37% QoQ (4x Q1FY21) led by secured products which grew by 11% YoY. Wholesale disbursement grew 34% YoY and 13% QoQ while SME 25% and large part consist of secured. Credit cards spends grew 31% QoQ within that retail grew 26% QoQ led festive season and further share of travel, dining and entertainment inching back to pre-covid level. Launched 12 products out of 17 live products in 9MFY21 while many products are in testing/final stage. Collective basis specific+ standard+ additional +covid provision coverage ratio stands at 116% of IRAC GNPA vs 74% YoY. Standard asset coverage ratio stands at 2.48% vs 0.78% YoY. Wholesale Segment 83% of standard book remain in A- equivalent and better. 94% of incremental sanctions having a rating A- & above. 71% having rating of AA & above. SME segment 80% of portfolio is SME 3 & better (A- & above). 84% of new borrower in incremental sanctions having a SME 3 & above. Axis finance Share of retail comprise of 30%+ of incremental disbursement. No account is required to restructure. ECLGS- Sanctioned to 25,000 customers worth of Rs105.83bn and disbursement of Rs88.75bn. Under ECLGS 1 disbursed Rs82.89bn and ECLGS 2 disbursed Rs5.86bn 83% of incremental retail sourcing coming from secured products. Most of the new acquisition in Q3FY21 was from mortgages with average LTV of 58%. 2 Axis Bank | Q3FY21 Result Review 81% of portfolio is secured while unsecured retail of portfolio stands at 10% and 19% of retail portfolio. In Q3FY21, demand resolution stood at 98% vs 94% QoQ and recover to pre-covid level and Bounce rate still remain slightly higher than pre-covid level. Recoveries from written off account up 70% compared to Dec’20 to pre-covid level. A restructured loan stands at R27.09bn i.e.0.42% of gross customer assets and further will remain same. As per stress test, seeing reduction in stress estimate for slippages for FY21 by in range of 45%-50% against April estimates. Interest reversal for the quarter stood at Rs6.14bn and fee reversal was Rs1.34bn. Covid 19 provision stands at Rs50.12bn and other provision (incl. restructuring) of Rs68.44bn. Gross slippages (IRAC norms) stood at Rs67.36bn and consist of wholesale-10%, CB-6% and retail- 84% (equally distributed in secured and unsecured). Non fund based exposure stands at Rs8.69bn. Slippages from BB & below book (IRAC norm) to NPA stood at Rs8.19bn vs Rs30.45bn YoY. Overall stress of the bank aggregates to 2.7% and have provision of Rs69% against the pool. Expect slippages to come down in Q4FY21. 3 Axis Bank | Q3FY21 Result Review Exhibit 1: Quarterly Snapshot (Rs mn) Year-end: March Q3FY21 Q3FY20 Q2FY21 YoY (%) QoQ (%) Interest Income 154,984 1,57,083 160,629 (1.3) (3.5) Interest Expenses 81,256 92,553 87,368 (12.2) (7.0) Net Interest Income 73,728 64,530 73,261 14.3 0.6 NIM (%) 3.6 3.6 3.6 2 bps 1 bps Non Interest Income 37,760 37,866 38,072 (0.3) (0.8) Operating Income 111,488 102,396 111,333 8.9 0.1 Staff Cost 16,774 13,652 14,129 22.9 18.7 Other Op Exp 33,759 31,316 28,227 7.8 19.6 Total Operating Expenses 50,533 44,968 42,356 12.4 19.3 Cost to Income (%) 45.3 43.9 38.0 141 bps 728 bps Operating Profit 60,955 57,428 68,977 6.1 (11.6) Provisions 46,043 34,709 45,807 32.7 0.5 PBT 14,912 22,719 23,170 (34.4) (35.6) Tax 3,746 5,148 6,343 (27.2) (40.9) -effective tax rate 25.1 22.7 27.4 246 bps (226 bps) PAT 11,166 17,571 16,827 (36.5) (33.6) EPS (Rs) 3.6 6.2 5.5 (41.5) (33.6) BV (Rs) 322.8 305.7 319.0 5.6 1.2 Deposits 6,541,403 5,916,755 6,354,543 10.6 2.9 Advances 5,827,539 5,501,377 5,763,725 5.9 1.1 Source: Company; IDBI Capital Research 4 Axis Bank | Q3FY21 Result Review Exhibit 2: ROE Decomposition (%) FY19 FY20 FY21E FY22E FY23E NII 2.91 2.94 3.11 3.19 3.17 Fees 1.66 1.56 1.25 1.32 1.32 Other Income 0.10 0.25 0.23 0.22 0.22 Net Revenue 4.67 4.75 4.59 4.73 4.71 Op.Exp 2.12 2.02 1.91 1.97 1.95 Op.Profit 2.55 2.73 2.68 2.76 2.76 Provisions 1.61 2.16 1.93 1.59 1.39 PBT 0.93 0.57 0.75 1.17 1.36 Tax 0.31 0.38 0.19 0.29 0.34 ROA 0.63 0.19 0.56 0.87 1.02 Leverage (x) 11.47 11.32 9.41 8.54 8.81 ROE 7.19 2.15 5.26 7.45 8.99 Source: Company; IDBI Capital Research Exhibit 3: One-year forward P/ABV 4 3 2 1 0 Jul-09 Jul-13 Jan-17 Jan-21 Jun-12 Jun-16 Jun-20 Oct-07 Apr-15 Apr-11 Apr-19 Feb-10 Sep-10 Feb-14 Sep-14 Sep-18 Dec-08 Dec-12 Aug-17 Nov-11 Nov-15 Nov-19 Mar-18 Mar-07 May-08 1 yr fwd P/BV -SD 1.6 Avg 2.1 +SD 2.7 Source: Company; IDBI Capital Research 5 Axis Bank | Q3FY21 Result Review Financial Summary Profit & Loss Account (Rs mn) Growth (%) Year-end: March FY20 FY21E FY22E FY23E Year-end: March FY20 FY21E FY22E FY23E Net interest income 252,062 293,202 324,156 357,186 Growth Fee Income 133,688 117,999 134,189 149,014 Deposits 16.7 8.7 10.5 12.0 Treasury