Covid-19 advisories may impact footfall, but could be 30-60 day phenomenon: Ajay Bijli, PVR

Update on the Indian Equity Market:

On Monday, Indian shares followed a slide in global peers as fears over the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak intensified and oil prices plunged. The Nifty hit its lowest since February 2019 and the sell-off triggered by the economic fallout of the virus outbreak worsened by the turmoil at Yes Bank.

Among the Nifty 50 stocks, Yes Bank (+32.2%), BPCL (+5.5%), Infratel (+2.9%) and Eicher Motors (0.7%) were the only stocks which ended the day in the green. ONGC (-16.0%), Vedanta (-15.3%), and Reliance (-13.1%) were the top losers of the day. All the sectoral indices too ended in the red. Metal (-7.7%), Media (-6.7%), and PSU Bank (-6.1%) were the top losers.

Covid-19 advisories may impact footfall but could be 30-60 day phenomenon: Ajay Bijli, PVR

Excerpts from an interview with Mr. Ajay Bijli, Chairman and Managing Director, PVR Cinemas published in Mint dated 06^th March 2020:

• The release of the latest Bond film has been postponed. Talking about the US movie collections, he said that China, Japan, and South Korea are the big markets. India is a significant market, but not as big as these markets. So, he believes that the Indian film industry will not get impacted. Baaghi 3, which is a big franchise released on Friday. The advances are good so no delay in release was announced.
• The Covid-19 advisory can impact footfall but it is an aberration because nobody has experienced anything like it. The safety, health, and security of the patrons are more important than the business. It is difficult to pinpoint if there has been an impact on the footfall because the content was not good in the past two weeks or is it the Covid-19. Mr. Bijli believes that this is a tide that will go away and the fundamentals of the business are very strong.
• When asked about the pre-emptive action to combat the virus, he said that they have put sanitizers and disinfectants everywhere. PVR employees are wearing marks everywhere. They are ensuring the box office, and the seats are disinfected and cleaned thoroughly.
• In terms of consumer spending outside the virus impact, PVR’s business has not been impacted. Before the virus issue, movies were releasing and people were coming out and watching movies, eating more.
• Even the Q3 results were comparable to last year’s Q3. During recessionary times, people eliminate a lot of things from their discretionary spending. Since watching a movie is a small ticket item, and the content has been good, people are going out to watch a movie. Smaller films or sleeper hits as they are called, have done very well. He believes, it is a lifestyle need gap to go out and entertain oneself in India.
• Studies show a positive correlation between OTT and cinema-going. He calls what is happening on Netflix and Amazon- long-form storytelling which is like Narcos -13 episodes, The Crown-26 episodes. The same people who consume long-form storytelling are going out and watching movies. People are consuming a lot of content but short-form storytelling is more experiential.

Consensus Estimate: (Source: market screener website)

• The closing price of PVR Ltd was ₹ 1574/- as of 09-March-2020. It traded at 43x/ 31x/ 23x the consensus earnings estimate of ₹ 36.9/ 51.4/ 68.1 for FY20E/FY21E/FY22E respectively.
• The consensus target price is ₹ 2060 /- which implies a PE multiple of 30x on FY22E EPS of ₹ 68.1/-.