Safal Niveshak

Wit. Wisdom. Value Investing.

Safal Niveshak StockTalk: Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.

Statutory Warning: This report may cause a reaction, and acting on it can be injurious to your wealth.

Note: This StockTalk analysis has been written by Abhishek Jain.

About GCPL
Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL) promoted by Godrej group is a household and personal care products company. Godrej group owns around 64% of equity and the company is professionally managed. Through international acquisitions, the company has built a sizeable international presence in Africa, Latin America, Indonesia and the UK. Its overseas businesses now account for 40% of revenues.


One Year Course in Value Investing

Join The Safal Niveshak Mastermind, my special one-year course in Value Investing to reinvent how you invest and take control of your financial life. Click here to know more and subscribe. Subscriptions for the first batch close on 25th August 2013!


Over the past decade, GCPL has evolved from a domestic market soap manufacturer to a diversified emerging market MNC. The proportion of soaps in GCPL’s consolidated revenues has reduced to ~20% in FY13 from 63% in FY05.

[Read more…] about Safal Niveshak StockTalk: Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.

Poke the Box: The Downside of Envy

Let’s Start with Safal Niveshak
Just in case you missed any of this on Safal Niveshak over the last few days…

  • Rs 25 lac is good enough saving for an Indian middle class family over a period of 5-6 years. But how about an “extra” Rs 25 lac? Here’s how you can achieve it.
  • People find it difficult to confess their mistakes in the open. Not the Safal Niveshak tribesmen! Read a big bunch of confessions from readers who have lost a lot of money in stocks they now think were big mistakes (good revelation in hindsight :-)). By the way, if you haven’t confessed yet, what are you waiting for?
Mental Model of the Week: Envy

“It is not greed that drives the world, but envy,” said Warren Buffett many years ago.

Recently, Farhan and Raju validated this in the movie 3 Idiots…


We often evaluate our own situation by comparing what we have with what others have.

The rigours of modern life – and the social necessity of keeping up with the Joneses – makes this weakness even more pronounced.

Here is an excerpt from Dan Ariely’s “Predictably Irrational” that I’m sure you would relate with your own life (like I could)…

A few years ago, for instance, I met with one of the top executives of one of the big investment companies. Over the course of our conversation he mentioned that one of his employees had recently come to him to complain about his salary.

“How long have you been with the firm?” the executive asked the young man.

“Three years. I came straight from college,” was the answer.

“And when you joined us, how much did you expect to be making in three years?”

“I was hoping to be making about a hundred thousand.”

The executive eyed him curiously.

“And now you are making almost three hundred thousand, so how can you possibly complain?” he asked.

“Well,” the young man stammered, “it’s just that a couple of the guys at the desks next to me, they’re not any better than I am, and they are making three hundred ten.”

The executive shook his head.

You see, envy is a tricky emotion. It exists on the edges of our consciousness. We don’t like to admit that we envy someone, especially if that someone is someone we don’t like or to whom we feel superior.

Subsequently, we’re as likely to deny we’re in the grip of envy not only to others but to ourselves. And that’s when it becomes a deadly sin, even as far as investing is concerned.

Like, look at this friend of mine who sold off his HUL shares a few months back at Rs 450, and then bought them again recently at Rs 700.

“Why?” I asked him in a sense of intrigue and disgust.

“Because I didn’t wanted to miss out on gains like others have made recently,” he revealed.

This reminded me of the story of Newton and his tryst with the stock of South Sea Company in 1720…


I find a lot of such Newtons around me…and often in the mirror! 🙂

Financial historian Charles Kindleberger wrote in “Manias, Panics, and Crashes” – “There is nothing so disturbing to one’s well-being and judgment as to see a friend get rich.”

It was for good reason, after all, that the Ten Commandments admonished – “Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house nor field, or male or female slave, or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Now, how do you get over your envy?

You can’t…simply because human nature makes us compare ourselves with others all the time. That’s the way our brains have been wired.

But you can still try. How?

  • Never envy your neighbour and never be owned by pride.
  • Remind yourself this each day – “I will not run a rat race because even if I win, I will still be a rat.”
  • Don’t try to mimic what those around you are doing. They may have a totally different purpose in life.
  • If someone else is getting richer faster than you by, for example, investing in risky stocks, so what? Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy. (Indian CEOs eyeing the “Forbes Richest” list need to read this!)

Finally, remember what Charlie Munger said – “Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?”

Stimulate Your Mind
Here’s some amazing content I read during the week gone by…

  • When is the last time you thought about how you think? Here’s a nice little post from Farnam Street on the five elements of effective thinking.
  • Here’s another reason I read a lot, and why even you should.
  • Stress kills, and big time! Here are three effective ways to free yourself from your addiction to stress.
  • The Economist recently posed this question to a few of today’s leading writers – “What was the greatest speech ever?” The result will surely make you proud.

Keep poking.

Avoid envy.

Avoid falling in love with your ideas.

Till next weekend…

Vishal Khandelwal
Chief Poker – Poke the Box

I Confess!

“How much – in percentage terms – has been your biggest ever booked loss in a stock? And which stock was that?”

I asked this on Safal Niveshak’s Facebook and Twitter walls yesterday. And before I could realize, the walls was full with people confessing how they have earned 50-100% losses on their stocks.

While some have booked these losses, there are a few who are hopeful to get their money back. 🙂

Anyways, my friend Vidyanshu suggested that it might be a great exercise to get the learnings of a lot more people from their investment failures, which has resulted in me writing this post.

[Read more…] about I Confess!

How to Save an Extra Rs 25 Lac

A three-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough flying miles to send an airline into losses (well almost!). Job with a foreign consulting company. Annual salary of Rs 30 lac…or around 45-times India’s average per capita income.

Yet my friend Rohan is not happy.

Whenever I meet him, he is, as I put it, caught on the “work-spend treadmill.”

So, last week when he was showing off his latest purchase, a third mobile, and one costing in excess of Rs 45,000, I told him, “Spend less money, my friend.”

“But spending money is what makes me happy,” he replied.


One Year Course in Value Investing

Join The Safal Niveshak Mastermind, my special one-year course in Value Investing to reinvent how you invest and take control of your financial life. Click here to know more and subscribe. Subscriptions for the first batch close on 25th August 2013!


“You don’t have to feel deprived when you spend less money,” I said. “In fact, if you keep spending and spending even as your income rises, you’ll keep running and running and never get anywhere.”

[Read more…] about How to Save an Extra Rs 25 Lac

Poke the Box: Make a Ruckus, Take Risks…but Remember Base Rates

Let’s Start with Safal Niveshak
Just in case you missed any of this on Safal Niveshak over the last few days…

  • Released StockTalk 2.0 report on India’s leading IT services company, TCS. See some interesting discussion in the Comments section of the report.
  • Safal Niveshak turned two on 11th July, so relived the amazing journey so far. I want to thank you, dear tribesman, for raising this initiative to this point — it truly could not have happened without your support!
Mental Model of the Week: Base Rates

I heard this recently in a radio ad of a leading insurance company – “For every minute you are stuck in the traffic, we settle five claims.”

Sounds great, right? Five claims in one minute is quite a number.

“But, five out of how many claims that you receive, sir?” I wanted to ask. When I got back home and checked the claim-settlement number, it was around 70%! Now that’s poor!

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,” said Sherlock Holmes.

Then, Bertrand Russell said, “Obviousness is always the enemy to correctness.”

It happens so often in life that we come out with wrong conclusions because they seem the obvious based on a single observed effect.

When someone remarked to the French writer Voltaire, “Life is hard,” he retorted, “Compared to what?”

We tend to ignore alternatives, and therefore we fail to make appropriate comparisons. Often we only consider information or evidence that is presented or available and don’t consider that information may be missing.

In effect, we ignore the base rates, which simply mean that if 1% of the public were “medical professionals”, and 99% of the public were not “medical professionals”, then the base rate of medical professionals is simply 1%.

In the same way, if 2% of penny stocks earn good long-term return, and 98% don’t, then the base rate of success in penny stock investing is just 2%.


Here is what Prof. Sanjay Bakshi said in his interview with Safal Niveshak…


One of the great lessons from studying history is to do with “base rates”. “Base rate” is a technical term of describing odds in terms of prior probabilities. The base rate of having a drunken-driving accident is higher than those of having accidents in a sober state.

So, what’s the base rate of investing in IPOs? When you buy a stock in an IPO, and if you flip it, you make money if it’s a hot IPO. If it’s not a hot IPO, you lose money.

But what’s the base rate – the averaged out experience – the prior probability of the activity of subscribing for IPOs – in the long run?

If you do that calculation, you’ll find that the base rate of IPO investing (in fact, it’s not even investing…it’s speculating) sucks!

That’s the case, not just in India, but in every market, in different time periods.

What you don’t see can really kill you! And people don’t see the base rates.

——-

When you evaluate whether smoking is good for you or not, if you look at the average experience of 1,000 smokers and compare them with a 1,000 non-smokers, you’ll see what happens.

People don’t do that. They get influenced by individual stories like a smoker who lived till he was 95. Such a smoker will force many people to ignore base rates, and to focus on his story, to fool themselves into believing that smoking can’t be all that bad for them.

What is the base rate of investing in leveraged companies in bull markets?


By the way, here are some base rates of dying for different reasons (as per the US National Center for Health Statistics)…

  • Hand gliding – 1 in 560
  • Grand Prix racing – 1 in 100
  • Motorbike racing – 1 in 1,000
  • Mountain climbing – 1 in 1,750
  • Bicycling – 1 in 140,000
  • Running/Swimming– 1 in 1 Million (1 Million = 10 Lac)
  • Car driving – 16 in 100,000 drivers
  • Motorcycle riding – 21.5 in 100 million vehicle miles
  • Airplane – 1.3 deaths in 100,000 flight hours
  • Smokers – 22x more likely to die of lung cancer than non-smokers
  • Lifelong smokers – 50% die before age 70
  • Dance parties – 1 in 100,000

Finally, regardless of all risks, your probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years!

So watch out for base rates before making any decision in life (and investing), and please be careful.

Stimulate Your Mind
Here’s some amazing content I read during the week gone by…

Poke of the Week – Take Risks

The leading American entrepreneur, author and public speaker Seth Godin has had a great influence on my life as a writer and thinker.

In his recent book titled The Icarus Deception, Seth writes about the story of Icarus, whose father Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son to fly out of a prison they were captivated in.

Daedalus tried his wings first, but before taking off from the island, warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight. However, overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted the wax.

Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms, and so he fell into the sea.

The Icarus myth is often used as an example of when hubris or over-confidence – of flying too high – can go badly wrong.

However Seth, in his book, points out that there is another part of the story – Icarus’s father Daedalus also told his son not to fly too low as the water could also damage his wings.

As per Seth – “Society has altered the myth, encouraging us to forget the part about the sea, and created a culture where we constantly remind one another about the dangers of standing up, standing out, and making a ruckus.”

However, he writes, settling for too little is “a far more common failing”.

You see, we all have the potential to do great work in life. However to do so, we need to leave our comfort zones – to fly closer to the sun, and to fail sometimes.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

Looking from another angle, if you’re hitting bull’s-eye every time, maybe you’re standing too close to the target.

Like when it comes to investing, I have a long list of great stocks that I did not buy or sold early, for a simple reason that I feared taking some risk.

But since these errors of omission won’t show up in my profit and loss account, I often ignore them.

The reality is that our errors of omission – not flying high and close to the sun – can be more costly than the errors of commission – flying too close to the waters.

Thankfully, what I omitted – taking risks – in my investing life, I committed in my work life, and that led me to quit my job to pursue my passion.

Ask yourself what stops you from taking risks in your life – not risks based on arrogance and blind overconfidence, but well-calculated risks like…

  • Building up a saleable skill that people would pay for, and then telling your boss that you won’t need his services soon
  • Telling your boss how his excel-based projections could go haywire
  • Starting a business that you have been wanting for years
  • Researching businesses and then investing in them independently
  • Spending time learning a third, or a fourth language
  • Learning how to swim or drive…or cook

Arthur Koestler put it so well – “If the Creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he certainly would have meant for us to stick it out.”


Just answer this question – “What would our world look like if more people moved out of their comfort zones, made a ruckus, and took risks to change their and others’ lives?”

Maybe this could be your permission slip.

If you haven’t done it already, sign up here to receive Poke the Box in your email…and get ready for stimulating Saturday mornings.

Keep poking.

Make a ruckus.

Take risks.

Remember base rates.

Please try to quit smoking.

Till next weekend…

Vishal Khandelwal
Chief Poker – Poke the Box

Safal Niveshak is 2 Years Old!

Yes, it’s time to put on the big boy pants…Safal Niveshak is two years old today. 🙂

A lot has happened in these quick two years, but as with any 2-year-old, I’m just getting started.

Most of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for “raising” this initiative to this point — it truly could not have happened without you, dear tribesman.

I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – Thank you so much for reading, for commenting, for your interest and support and intelligent criticism, for keeping me honest, for helping this entire movement of creating smarter and independent stock market investors become greater and spread wider.

You are magnificent, and I am supremely grateful for your time and attention.

Here are some numbers that might interest you.

In these two years, I have written 400 posts, have 6,000+ subscribers for The Safal Niveshak Post, and have seen 100,500 unique visitors visit the website from 151 countries.

Most importantly, not only are people coming to Safal Niveshak, they are staying here for more than 5 minutes per visit. Now that’s encouraging in the age of Twitter and widespread attention deficit disorders! 🙂

Here are the five most-read posts on the site over these two years…

I get a lot of emails every week from readers telling me that something I wrote kept them out of trouble or helped them make sense of their personal financial life. These letters serve a great sense of achievement and provide a consistent motivation to carry on doing my work.

Here’s one such letter I received recently…

Your articles are like lampposts in unknown land. Every time I am confused about which way to go I try to look at the lampposts and I get the way. I know at the end I have to find the way myself but a guide who traveled this road can tell about the possible precautions and dangers as well as pleasures in travelling by this route. Thank you for what you are doing. ~ Dr. Umesh Lad

I want to finish this post by saying that I’m really humbled that you take the time to read what I write down here…especially when I write the exact same thing 200 times a year in such a way that you never think I am repeating myself. 🙂

Here’s something that resonates so much with what I am feeling as Safal Niveshak completes two years.

I read this on one of the few blogs I read consistently…that of Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, who wrote this after completing five years at his own blog…

“I am simply amazed at the most intricate and valuable information that has come through these posts…on matters personal, on matters of conflict, on matters of worldly wisdom, of care and consideration for the other, of the connections made with unknowns, of bondings, friendships that never existed but do now with a flourish, our concerns for each other, our greetings to those, oceans and worlds apart, of discovering incredible talent…all through the medium of a few words.

Thank you dear tribesman for your patience, and for bearing with me!

Special thanks to Mr. Sudhir Bhargava for being the most prolific commentator on Safal Niveshak so far, with his 253 comments. Here’s a special gift I just sent him.


Finally, I have a request to make – If Safal Niveshak has touched your life, as an investor or otherwise, I would be happy and honoured to know in the Comments below.

I am waiting to get motivated for another two years. 🙂

Safal Niveshak StockTalk: TCS

Statutory Warning: This report may cause a reaction, and acting on it can be injurious to your wealth.

Note: This StockTalk analysis has been written by Nishanth Muralidhar.

About TCS
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is one of India’s leading IT services companies, with the backing of one of the most valuable brands of India – the Tata Group. It is India’s biggest IT service company by employee headcount, as well as the biggest by revenues currently. TCS was also the first IT company in India to achieve revenues of US$ 10 billion.

[Read more…] about Safal Niveshak StockTalk: TCS

Poke the Box: Look at the Sky…but Please Ask Why

Let’s Start with Safal Niveshak
Just in case you missed any of this on Safal Niveshak over the last few days…

  • Released StockTalk 2.0 report on leading oil and gas exploration and production company Cairn India. See some interesting discussion in the Comments section of the report.
  • Shared Charlie Munger’s wisdom on living a happy life and getting rich.
Mental Model of the Week: Social Proof

Have you ever been in a situation when you looked at the sky, or at something, just because someone else was staring there? Like in this image below…


I remember playing a few of such pranks during school days, when a group of us friends started looking at the sky and then giggling at passers-by following us in doing so.

It’s another matter that I did not realize then that I was getting the passers-by to indulge in what psychologists call as “social proof”.

As per Wikipedia, social proof is – …a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation. This effect is prominent in ambiguous social situations where people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior, and is driven by the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation.

In simple words, social proof is all about ‘what-you-think-I-think…what-you-do-I-do”.

Social proof is what is at work in canned laughter – what you hear in comedy shows. The reason such laughter exists is because it causes the audience to laugh longer and more often when humorous material is presented and to rate the material as funnier.

In fact, you will hear the laughter even when there’s nothing to laugh about. I propose they add such laughter to business channels as well, so that people stressed hearing the experts can get a few laughs. 🙂

Social proof applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behaviour. We view a behaviour as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.

Whether the question is what to do with an empty popcorn box in a movie theatre, how fast to drive on a certain stretch of highway, or what to put on the plate at a dinner party, the actions of those around us will be important in defining the answer.

Social proof works to both our advantage and disadvantage. When someone shouts “Bomb!” at a packed theatre, it pays to run with others for safety without being analytical.

It also helps us find books we’ll like (Amazon reviews), restaurants to eat at (Zomato, Burrp), and places to travel (TripAdvisor). We don’t make our decisions in a choice vacuum. Our social circles influence our actions and our purchases, and that’s normal.

Anyways, social proof also works in stock market investing.

Why do you think most of us are always on the lookout for others’ opinions on the stocks we own or want to own?

Social proof is the reason you will find most fund managers owing similar stocks in their portfolios. The thinking is – “If I outperform, I will be a star…but if I underperform, I will be like others!”

But then, Somerset Maugham said, “If 40 million people say a foolish thing, it does not become a wise one.”

You will scold your child who misbehaves and then says, “But everybody else is doing it.” Have you ever scolded yourself for investing like everyone else is doing?

Social proof also works at a bigger level…inside companies. That is what drives most CEOs to act like their peers. So they will acquire companies just because a competitor is doing so. And they will conduct accounting frauds just because many others are doing so!

Warren Buffett on Social Proof
Here is what Warren Buffett wrote to his managers in September 2006, when his peers in corporate America were all under the spell of social proof to justify their misdoings…

The five most dangerous words in business may be “Everybody else is doing it.” A lot of banks and insurance companies have suffered earnings disasters after relying on that rationale.

Even worse have been the consequences from using that phrase to justify the morality of proposed actions. More than 100 companies so far have been drawn into the stock option backdating scandal and the number is sure to go higher. My guess is that a great many of the people involved would not have behaved in the manner they did except for the fact that they felt others were doing so as well. The same goes for all of the accounting gimmicks to manipulate earnings – and deceive investors – that has taken place in recent years.

You would have been happy to have as an executor of your will or your son-in-law most of the people who engaged in these ill-conceived activities. But somewhere along the line they picked up the notion – perhaps suggested to them by their auditor or consultant – that a number of well-respected managers were engaging in such practices and therefore it must be OK to do so. It’s a seductive argument.

But it couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, every time you hear the phrase “Everybody else is doing it” it should raise a huge red flag. Why would somebody offer such a rationale for an act if there were a good reason available? Clearly the advocate harbors at least a small doubt about the act if he utilizes this verbal crutch.

Avoiding Social Proof
How to get over the social proof tendency? Here is some advice from Peter Bevelin’s Seeking Wisdom…

  • The 19th Century American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
  • What is popular is not always right. If you don’t like what other people are doing, don’t do it. Warren Buffett says: “We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don’t.”
  • Disregard what others are doing and think for yourself. Ask: Does this make sense? Remember the advice from Benjamin Graham, the dean of financial analysis – “Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it – even though others may hesitate or differ. You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”

Stimulate Your Mind
Here’s some amazing content I read during the week gone by…

  • It takes years to build a reputation, but a few moments to destroy it. Ask Rajat Gupta, the poster boy of what was right with Indians, and now, what is wrong with Indians.
  • Daniel Kahneman shares some wonderful insights on how your brain leads you astray, and how you can make sense of this senseless world. Watch the video or read the transcript.
  • Was Einstein the world’s worst husband? Wife ordered to keep room tidy, serve three meals a day – but expect NO affection… and she must stop talking when he demands it!
  • Why hotels don’t offer you toothpastes? Here’s the resolved mystery.
  • The world’s largest democracy is preparing to snoop on its citizens. Watch out for what you talk on phone or browse on the Internet!
Poke of the Week – Ask “Why?”

“Why can’t I buy that toy, papa?” “You already have another one like that.” “But why can’t I buy one more?” “You won’t like playing with two similar toys. Isn’t it?”

“Why are you saying this?” “I know that dear, because I was a kid myself!” “Why have you grown up, papa? If you were still small, you could have played and enjoyed with me and my toys!”

“Everyone has to grow up, my baby!” “Why papa?”

Why? Why? Why?

If you’re a parent of a small child, you most likely hear this question several times during a day – “Why?”

While all children are inquisitive, there are some who love to prick your brain by asking questions until they find a satisfactory reply from you. My 8-year old daughter falls in this very category of hyper-inquisitives.

I find myself bombarded with her questions every now and then. There are some questions that I have replies for. And then there are many for which I have no replies.

But I enjoy her questions as they most often force me to think beyond the obvious to pull out the answers that satisfied her inquisitiveness.

There is a reason a child asks so many ‘Why?’ questions. And this is something most of us adults don’t understand.

The reason is that when a child asks a question on a subject she is not familiar with, she has no point of reference. She’s coming from nowhere in her inquisitiveness regarding her question.

It’s same as you walking into a space scientists convention. Would you be able to understand the intelligent discussion that’s going on, or even ask a simple question that didn’t give the scientists the hint that that you don’t fit in with the crowd?

I bet most of us couldn’t, because most of us have no point of reference regarding space science. Similarly, a child will continue to ask questions till the time she gets something that she understands and appreciates.

So ask questions. Don’t be afraid to show your ignorance!

Give yourself a license to expose your lack of knowledge about a particular subject, and ask “why is that?”

That’s the fastest way to get a little wiser each day.

By the way, can you please tell me if we call oranges ‘oranges,’ why don’t we call bananas ‘yellows,’ or apples ‘reds’? 🙂

If you haven’t done it already, sign up here to receive Poke the Box in your email…and get ready for stimulating Friday mornings.

Keep poking.

Look at the cloudy sky.

Keep asking why.

Till next Friday…

Vishal Khandelwal
Chief Poker – Poke the Box

How to Be Happy and Get Rich

I have been re-reading Poor Charlie’s Almanack over the past few days in preparation of my upcoming Mastermind course.

This is my fifth reading of this wonderful book, and it seems I am going through it for the very first time.

Unlike what many people think, this book is not a ready reckoner on how to become a successful investor. In fact, it’s much more than that.

It’s a book on how to live a happy, sensible and rich life and in the process become a better thinker and investor.

As you read through the book, some of Munger’s ideas will inspire you, and some will make you uncomfortable. But all will challenge you to think outside the box.

The third chapter of Poor Charlie’s Almanack captures “Mungerisms”, where Munger dispels hundreds of ideas on subjects ranging from life, investing, academia, financial engineering, accounting, money management business, and managements.

[Read more…] about How to Be Happy and Get Rich

Safal Niveshak StockTalk: Cairn India

Statutory Warning: This report may cause a reaction, and acting on it can be injurious to your wealth.

Note: This StockTalk analysis has been written by Sridhar V. Sridhar owns the stock, so the following analysis may be biased. Be careful!

Cairn India is one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies in India. It, along with its joint venture partners, account for more than 20% of India’s domestic crude oil production.

The company is primarily engaged in the business of oil and gas exploration, production and transportation. Its average daily gross operated production was 205,323 BOE (barrels of oil equivalents) in FY12-13. The company sells its oil to major refineries in India and its gas to both PSU and private buyers.

Business overview
The oil exploration and production business is a high-risk venture globally, and investors need to be aware of this.

The business involves bidding for projects based on initial assessment of potential resources, which may or may not materialize or get fully exploited.

In layman terms, it is difficult to assess with precision as to exactly how much oil exists below the ground. However, players having the right skills and technical know-how have a reasonable estimate of the resource potential, and how they can exploit it.

Further, it’s a highly-capital intensive activity, where the gestation period of a project can range anywhere between 7-12 years or more.

Nature of industry
As mentioned above, the business itself is challenging because it’s a long-gestation activity, highly capital intensive, requires high technical skills & project experience, etc.

Further, revenues are subject to two factors – the amount of output and oil price.

The government may have certain restrictions on the amount of output, and it may also impose royalties on the producer.

Further, oil prices are benchmarked to international oil prices, hence there is oil price risk plus foreign exchange conversion risk in a company’s dealings with customers.

In simple terms, revenues are linked to international oil prices quoted in US dollar per barrel, and gets converted into Indian rupees, thereby getting exposed to oil price and forex risks.

Key players: ONGC is the leader in the Indian oil & gas exploration and production industry. Then, there are companies like Oil India, Reliance Industries, Essar Oil and several other players.

Cairn is not an oil marketing or distribution company, hence we are not discussing about HPCL, BPCL, etc. here, though these companies also might have exploration arms/units.

Exploration and production companies are also referred to as upstream oil companies, and marketing/distribution companies are known as downstream. (I tried my best not to use such complex terms -but if you read them elsewhere, this might be of help :-)).

Competition: Competition comes from large players such as ONGC, RIL, etc. However, crude oil being an essential commodity with more demand and limited supply in India, these companies can be expected to have a stable pricing.

Petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene are subsidized in India, and the subsidy burden is taken up by ONGC, the largest exploration and production behemoth in India.

Private players are not affected by this subsidy burden, hence those including Cairn, RIL, etc. have a significant edge over PSU players.

Cairn is contributing to about 25% of the domestic consumption as per recent estimates.

A major portion of our oil supply is from imports and predominantly from Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, Saudi, Qatar, and Kuwait.

Paying for oil increases the import burden and also widens the Current Account Deficit. The situation worsens when the payment has to be made in US dollars because the rupee deprecation increases the outflow of foreign exchange.

Hence, the Indian government is taking steps to encourage domestic production and aiming to have a better energy security for the country. This is a positive for players such as Cairn, ONGC, and RIL.

Entry barriers: The industry has high entry barriers given the huge upfront costs required (that run into billions of dollars), uncertainty about reserve potential and actual results, environmental and social impact, permissions or approvals from Govt., royalty to Govt., etc. Some point are discussed below under the “Moat” heading.

Cairn’s financial performance
1. Growth in Revenue, Profits: Before you start questioning the numbers, remember that Cairn is relatively a new player in the oil and gas space. And this business takes several years to break even, and profits come in after this stage.

This is the cause for the change from negative to positive numbers during 2006, 2007 and later periods.


All figures in Rs Crore except %; FY change in 2008 has been incorporated in FY09

As the business has gained stability and with steady growth in the number of wells and output in Rajasthan, the potential for growth is high.

Cairn’s sales and profit growth have been excellent over the past 2-3 years, and we can expect moderation in future. But I hope the consistency would remain.

I don’t want to paint a rosy picture, but if some new production happens, and if government gives approvals for higher output in future, we can expect accelerated growth for the company.

Even if we take a conservative 15-20% annual growth in sales, it would add consistent earnings to the company’s cash reserves.

The company’s margins are pretty high, since the project is now commercialized and is in a steady growth state.

2. Returns on Equity/Capital: Cairn’s ROE and ROCE during FY12 were 16.4% and 18.1% respectively. I did some calculation based on March 2013 results and the ROE comes to around 25% for FY13.

We still need to wait for the annual report to get a better insight into this. However, looking at the past trends, I see improvements though it may not confirm the rule book.

The opportunity for returns to improve is high, and if you understand this business, Cairn has crossed the introductory, exploration stage and is in the production and commercialization mode in many wells across Rajasthan Block.

Given the long-term nature of the business, the growth will continue for several years until it reaches a saturation point.

3. Moat: You might think that a moat is irrelevant here given that this is a commodity-oriented business.

Of course, Cairn deals with a commodity, but think of it as a toll-bridge, or a company selling products that must be purchased for essential needs. If you want to use petrol, diesel, LPG, kerosene, petrochemical products/byproducts, etc…you will somehow end up buying this commodity which is short is supply.

Moreover, this is not like other commodities which can be recycled and reused.

Once you use it, it’s exhausted – it’s a non-renewable resource. Whether you drive a car or two wheeler, you will be paying for fuel. And similarly for cooking gas, inverters, generators, and machinery (factories), you will be using fuel that is derived from crude oil.

We cannot go back to “bull and cart” era and neither can we do without fossil fuels, as solar, wind and other forms may not replace traditional fuel so quickly. So there is a demand and it is durable and sustainable.

Secondly, not every company can get in to oil and gas exploration. The Rajasthan block that is explored by Cairn and ONGC in a 70-30 Joint Venture is one of the biggest resources in India (probably KG basin might get closer to it).

How many companies in India can set up a block like Rajasthan or the KG basin, which requires enormous investments that are in the range of billions of dollars?

Finding a block itself is not easy, and if you found one you need multiple approvals, environmental clearances, huge capital, employee base, etc. So there is a hurdle/wall which makes it difficult for several competitors to enter.

4. Potential: The Rajasthan basin is estimated to have over 7 billion barrels of oil per day, and Cairn is currently producing roughly 200,000 barrels per day. So there’s a huge growth potential ahead for the company.

5. Debt/Leverage: Cairn is debt free and is capable of generating a stream of free cash flows in future.

How’s the management?
Cairn’s management quality is sound and consists of a strong team of technical and managerial personnel.

Last year there was some news on management changes when Rahul Dhir left Cairn to pursue another assignment. However, with the entry of Vedanta, the results have been positive as they retained the same brand, experts, technicians, and managerial personnel.

So, despite the entry of a new promoter, the business model and its functioning are running well.

If you are not a great Vedanta fan, you don’t have to agree with me, but Cairn’s functioning style is completely different from those of Sterlite, Hindustan Zinc, Sesa Goa, etc.

What’s the valuation?
A. DCF (using free cash flows): Rs 385

Historical Cash Flows: This is just to understand the past trends and have a base to start with.


Note: The year 2008 has been left blank because due to the FY change in 2008, the numbers are incorporated in year 2009. For example the financial year ending in 2008 December has been extended to March 2009 and has been incorporated in 2009 figures. Prior to 2008, the company’s financial year ended in December. The cash flows in the past have been inconsistent due to the development stage of the projects.

A brief of my assumptions are below.

  • Free cash flow (or Owners Earnings) from 2013 (estimated) till 2022 have been considered. Stage 1 Growth: 15% (for years 1-5). Stage 2 Growth: 10% (for years 6-10) – based on production growth trends
  • Discount rate: 15%
  • Terminal growth rate: 5% (after 10 years)

Here are the FCF estimates for the next ten years…


The present value of future cash flows and terminal value comes to Rs 385.

B. Dividend Discounting & Terminal Book Value Method: Rs 330

Key assumptions:

  • Book Value Growth: 7.3% (average of last 6 years)
  • Current Book Value: Rs 253 (consolidated for 2011-12)
  • Estimated Book Value as of Year 10 is based on 7.3% growth over 10 years.
  • Risk Free Rate: 7.3% (10 year govt bond yield as on June 14, 2013)
  • Dividend: Based on dividend for 2012-13 being taken as a conservative figure for future years. Not a good estimate, but on a conservative basis we can expect dividends to remain constant or grow gradually


All figures in Rs Crore except %

C. Relative Valuation method: Rs 570
Production assumptions under this method are:

  • Rajasthan – 180,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd)
  • Ravva – 21,000 bpd
  • Cambay – 4,500 bpd

Other assumptions:

  • Oil Price: $80 (Cairn sells at 10-15% discount to brent, and a lower price to account for commodity cycle risk)
  • No of production days: 300 (assuming lower working hours, holidays, etc)
  • US-INR Rate: Rs.54


Disclaimer: Most of the above analysis involves estimates about future business environment, which may or may not materialize, hence readers are requested to do their own due diligence.

Final Intrinsic Value
In summary, here are the approx. intrinsic valuations calculated as per various methods…

  • Discounted free cash flow – Rs 385
  • Dividend discount & terminal book value – Rs 330
  • Relative valuation – Rs 570

Based on these, the fair value range for Cairn’s stock comes to around Rs 365 to Rs 425 per share.

Assuming a margin of safety of 30% to the average of this range, the safe purchase price for Cairn is Rs 275.

Don’t ignore the risks!
Crude oil price dependence: Cairn’s revenue is based on crude oil prices, and any decline in oil prices can impact the revenues.

Foreign currency risk (Rs. Vs $ rates)

High cost of exploration: This can be a challenge if there are unexpected costs that add up making the project less profitable.

Judgment of reserve estimate: The approach taken by Cairn in judging estimate has been reasonable or on the conservative side.

Govt. approvals/permissions: This is an integral part of the business, and also serves as a Barrier to Entry. Given that we are an energy-deficient country the Government realizes the importance of exploration and has been encouraging the sector. However, getting timely approvals can be a challenge. If the business plans and execution is good then getting these approvals in place should not be an issue though it can be time consuming.

Potential shale oil supplies: Recently the US as well as other countries have initiatives shale gas exploration, which is a different method of exploration that is expected to bring in new supplies. Sale exploration involves fracturing from rocks below the surface. If there is a bumper output from shale production, oil prices can decline, and competition may arise. However, the above is mitigated to an extent because shale exploration process is highly complex, expensive and the costs involved will motivate suppliers to price oil higher, because the process is currently more expensive than conventional exploration. (I’m not an expert in this – someone from oil industry can comment on this.)

Demand: Some industry experts view that demand may reduce or saturate, and there are talks about shale boom leading to high supply-low demand situation. But if we look at India itself, which is within our Circle of Competence, the demand for fuel is very high – be it for petrol, diesel, gas variants, etc. I recently heard from local autowala that CNG prices have been increased on various occasions. And they still have to use it as CNG has fitted vehicles are becoming common.

Challenges and barriers mentioned above such as high cost, uncertainty, environmental or social issues, royalty fees, etc. are sometimes discouraging many global players in to venture in to this space. Nevertheless Cairn, BP and several other are exploring select pockets of opportunity.

Recent developments
The company’s Chief Executive P. Elango recently said, We plan to drill more than 450 wells in Rajasthan block over a three year period, a significant increase from the current rate of 25 wells drilled in FY2013.

“The Rajasthan block’s current production is at around 175,000 bpd (barrel’s per day). We expect to exit FY2014 with a production in the range of 200,000-215,000 bpd.”

Cairn’s current production comes from five fields – Mangala, Bhagyam, Aishwariya, Raageshwari and Saraswati. The Mangala field, the management has said, is producing at plateau rates of 150,000 bpd.

Aishwariya commenced production in March and is expected to ramp up to approved rate of 10,000 bpd over the next few months.

Bhagyam, the second biggest oilfield behind Mangala, is expected to ramp up to the approved rate of 40,000 bpd by the second half of current fiscal.

Disclosure & Disclaimer: I, Sridhar V, hold Cairn as part of my personal portfolio and may have recommended to others. Readers are advised to do their own independent assessment and take professional advice before taking any decision. You can expect some errors or forward looking statements, so do your own research as well.


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