Confident of double-digit growth in FY22 on pent-up demand – Emami

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Edited excerpts of an interview with Mr. Mohan Goenka, Director, Emami with CNBC TV18 dated 26th May, 2021:

• Emami reported good Q4 earnings on a favourable base with 39% volume growth in domestic business. Director, Mohan Goenka says he’s confident of double-digit growth in FY22 on pent-up demand. He added their promoter pledge is at 30% & they will reduce it to 15% in the next 1 year.
• Revenue was over Rs 9000 mn in 3QFY21 v/s ~Rs 7300 mn in 4QFY21. But these numbers are not comparable on QoQ basis due seasonality in business. Emami has shown a decent growth in 2 years horizon and when compared to 4QFY19 the growth is robust.
• All categories like Zandu Balm, Kesh King, Men’s grooming products and Menthoplus has grown much better in 4QFY21 over 3QFY21.
• 40-45% of the sales comes from the winter portfolio.
• Emami started with a good note and first two weeks of April saw a very good demand. Emami has seasonal products and has healthy summer products like Navratna Tel and cool talc, however the demand tapered this season. But it is also seen that the demand really bounces back as soon as cases comes down and this time when market opens up, the company is confident of delivering a double-digit volume growth as the pent-up demand comes through.
• Seeing the input price inflation, Emami has taken 4% price hike which will take care of the input cost pressure leading to a stable Gross Margin.
• Rural demand has been impacted across geographies in second wave. The Company expects demand to pick up quickly as soon as lockdowns are lifted.
• Having the healthcare range in the portfolio, Emami was able to sell products even in the month of April and May. The demand for these products was seen to be robust.
• In the last 2 years contribution of E-commerce has reached ~4% of domestic business from 0.5%. It is expected to reach at least 6% in next 2-3 years.
• Cost reduction was seen in employee cost, other expenses and advertisement, EBITDA margin was at all time high at 30% level and target is to sustain margins going ahead.
• No need to add capacity as of now as the capacity utilization is ~60%.

Asset Multiplier Comments
• We believe that competition in Emami’s key product categories such as skin, and hair oil, will continue to remain high. Nevertheless, we remain optimistic about the favourable base, and robust demand and growth in health and hygiene market, especially in rural markets.

Consensus Estimate (Source: investing. com and market screener websites)
• The closing price of Emami was ₹ 504/- as of 26-May-20. It traded at 42.5x/32.1x the consensus EPS estimate of ₹ 11.8/15.6 for FY22E/ FY23E respectively.
• The consensus target price of ₹ 564/- implies a PE multiple of 36x on FY23E EPS of ₹ 15.6/-.

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