Ahluwalia Contracts (India) Ltd. share price target

The interaction covered large Road players, Building EPC players and T&D players. Large part of the halt is (1) Due to Central/State Govt directive on lock down and work from home (2) Few clients have told Contractors for closure till 31st March 2020 & (3) Goodwill towards employees'/laborers' safety. Whilst our last week survey was more encouraging with our coverage universe execution largely on track, the call for Janta Curfew has resulted in project sites staring at closure. We interacted with 15 large Indian Infra companies to gauge on the ground impact of COVID-19 on execution.

AHLU delivered yet another 3QFY20 miss. We continue to remain patient as execution shall start on entire order backlog from 4QFY20E. While Mohammadpur project is in preparatory stage after receiving EC, Rs 5.5bn Charbagh Station redevelopment may get foreclosed due to environment hurdle. New wins of Rs 32.3bn doesn't have environment concerns. Delhi construction ban has lifted. The Robust balance sheet, net cash status and better than peers RoE/RoCE are other comforting factors. We maintain BUY. Key risks include (1) Slow down in government capex; (2) High cost inflation; (3) Stuck projects; (4) Lower than expected leasing in Kota BOT project. We maintain BUY on AHLU with unchanged TP of Rs 388 (15x FY21E EPS) despite 40% 3QFY20 miss on APAT. We downgrade our FY20E EPS by 24% to factor in slow order book to execution conversion and ~Rs 5.5bn of non moving projects. We retain FY21E estimate. Robust order book and strong BS augurs well for re-rating.

AHLU's guidance miss over the past two years (Rev/EBIDTA margins) has unnerved investors as this was on back of order book multiplying 2x (over FY18-19) and resultant expectation of higher growth delivery. Broader economic slowdown, tight liquidity, NGT ban and clients deferring project started impacting execution. However, these issues appear to be settling as execution has picked up from Nov-19. Robust BS, net cash status and better RoE/RoCE than its peers are other comforting factors. We maintain BUY. Key risks include (1) Slow down in government capex; (2) High cost inflation; (3) Stuck projects; (4) Lower than expected leasing in Kota BOT project. Despite 2x jump in order backlog during FY18-20, AHLU is forecasted to deliver 4.2% rev CAGR. Tight liquidity, EC delays/NGT ban and client specific issues impacted execution. We believe that guidance misses over the past two years are now behind and AHLU is well placed to deliver 15-20% growth over next two years. Strong balance sheet, robust cash flow and superior RoE augurs well for re-rating. We maintain BUY with TP of Rs 388. We value the core EPC operations at 15x FY21E EPS.

AHLU delivered yet another 2QFY20 miss. We continue to remain patient as execution shall start on entire order backlog from 4QFY20E. About Rs 10.6bn worth of projects (15% of OB) are slow moving of this Rs 5.5bn Charbagh Station redevelopment may get foreclosed due to environment hurdle. New wins of Rs 20bn doesn't have environment concerns. Delhi construction ban may get lifted by Nov-19 end. The Robust balance sheet, net cash status and better than peers RoE/RoCE are other comforting factors. We maintain BUY. Key risks include (1) Slow down in government capex; (2) High cost inflation; (3) Stuck projects; (4) Lower than expected leasing in Kota BOT project. We maintain BUY on AHLU with a reduced TP of Rs 388 (vs. Rs 402/sh earlier) despite 26% 2QFY20 miss on APAT. We downgrade our FY20/21E EPS by (13)/2.7% to factor in slow order book to execution conversion and ~Rs 10.6bn of non moving projects. Tight liquidity is another factor impacting growth. We value the core EPC operations at 15x FY21E EPS.

Though the global economic growth declined from 3.8% in 2017 to 3.6% in 2018, the Indian economy remained relatively steadfast. Growth in activity and capital inflows was witnessed in the Indian Construction Sector driven mainly by Government Capex. The EPC segment regained its growth momentum in 2018 due to positive developments in the economy, investments in transport infrastructure, energy and housing projects as stated in Construction in India' by Global Data. Private corporate Capex...

AHLU has witnessed strong order inflows during FY19 but somehow there has been quarterly execution misses leading to failure in achieving FY19 annual guidance. FY20 is no different with a weak quarterly start amidst tight liquidity conditions. We remain skeptical on AHLU achieving its FY20E growth guidance. Only hope is strong starting order backlog and Patna PWD project (Rs 5.2bn) breaking ground from Sep-19. Robust balance sheet, net cash status and better than peers RoE/RoCE are other comforting factors. We maintain BUY. Key risks include (1) Slow down in government capex; (2) High cost inflation; (3) Stuck projects; (4) Lower than expected leasing in Kota BOT project. We maintain BUY with a reduced TP of Rs 402 (vs. Rs 430/sh earlier) despite 25/25/33% 1QFY20 miss on Rev/EBITDA/APAT. We downgrade our FY20/21E EPS by 6.6/6.6% to factor in ~Rs 10.6bn of non moving projects. We value the core EPC operations at 16x FY21E EPS.

Subdued Performance on Execution Slowdown; Maintain BUY Ahluwalia Contracts (AHLU) has delivered a subdued performance in 1QFY20, mainly marred by persistent delay in two key projects (Rs10bn), delay in bills certification and execution slowdown due to General Elections. Revenue declined by 22% YoY to Rs3.2bn, while EBITDA and PAT declined by 26% YoY and 37% YoY, respectively. EBITDA margin stood at 12.4% (-65bps YoY and +73bps QoQ). Further, AHLU added orders worth Rs4.3bn during the quarter and is in L1 position for projects worth ~Rs7bn. Current order backlog stands at Rs60bn (3.6x of TTM revenue), which continues to remain impressive. Despite soft revenue booking in 1Q, the Management maintained...

With an order pipeline of ~Rs 50bn (dominated by hospitals, educational and metro related projects) AHLU expects ~Rs 20bn of inflows in FY20E. Even though it was quite open earlier to add private sector projects in the near term, it admits that the public sector skew will continue and is unlikely to change materially for now. AHLU has survived across cycles and has tuned itself to the vagaries of the building segment. We like AHLU's conservative bidding approach, focus on balance sheet and staying away from unnecessary diversification. We maintain BUY. Key risks include (1) Slow down in government capex; (2) High cost inflation; (3) Stuck projects; (4) Lower than expected leasing in Kota BOT project. We maintain BUY with a reduced TP of Rs 430 (vs Rs 443/sh earlier) despite 11/25/24% 4QFY19 miss on Rev/EBITDA/APAT. We have downgraded our FY20/21E EPS by 6.8/3.1% to factor in ~Rs 8.3bn of non moving projects.

Maintain BUY with reduced TP of Rs 449/sh (vs Rs 487 earlier) valuing the EPC segment at 18x Dec-20E EPS, Kota BOT 1x P/BV). AHLU posted weak numbers with Rev/EBITDA/APAT coming in 12/23/23% lower than estimate. This was primarily led by NGT related issues in both Delhi (~Rs 600-700mn revenue impact) and Bihar (~Rs 400mn impact). With fixed cost absorption on lower revenue base, EBIDTA margins slipped 545bps QoQ to 11.8%.

ACIL's net sales in Q3FY19 increased by about 16% yoy to Rs4.2bn, but came in below our estimates due to issues relating to tree-cutting in the NCR region and delays in getting approvals for a few projects. EBITDA declined 20.5% yoy to Rs496.2mn while EBITDA margin stood at 11.9% (Emkay est: 13%), due to weak execution and higher other expenses which...