More on Valuation of banks

Got the following comments on my previous post from prem sagar. Thought they were very valid points and hence I am posting my reponse to it seperately in a post.

Hi Rohit,

nice analysis. But I get some thoughts here.

1. What if the bank had been increasing leverage to increase or maintain higher ROE? The bank wud have maintained a 20% ROE, but leverage wud have gone higher and hence the risks. Would you not like to consider higher ROE maintained at stable net interest margins and stable net profit margins in your equation? Paying higher price to book just to maintain higher ROE can be a double edged sword where leverage can be dangerous. Dont we need to maintain our profitability and margin spread too?

2. What would you pay for a bank/nbfc with a low leverage (Say IDFC with leverage of around 4 times)..that has potential to increase leverage and hence ROE in future...as per your ROE equation, IDFC wud get a low Price to book.
3. Why shouldnt we consider ROA (assets net of NPA) instead of ROE in ur calculation? THis will show if constantly increased leverage was the reason in maintaining ROE or not.


I agree with all the above points. The post on bank valuation is a simplistic approach to valuing a bank. I always consider leverage an important variable expecially for a financial institution, such as a bank. As a matter of fact I tend to avoid companies with high leverage unless they are well run. Businesses with high leverage are extremely dependent on the quality of management. A small error by management can hurt the business very badly (note the number of banks and FI which have failed and been bailed out by the government on tax payers money).

What I should have put in my previous post is that all of the following factors being in favour, ROE can be used as a good variable to value a bank.

Factors
1. Leverage – This is represented by CAR (capital adequacy ratio). Higher the CAR, better the quality of the business. As a personal note, I prefer to select banks with CAR of atleast 10-12%
2. Level of NPA and asset quality. A bank can have high ROE and still have a lot of problems loans which are hidden by a practise called as greening of loans (give loan to an existing account to prevent the loan from defaulting)
3. Level of operating expense / Net interest income. This reflects the operating efficiency of the bank
4. Level of non-interest, fee based income. Higher the better.
5. Brand name, retail network and management quality. All fuzzy factors, but fairly important ones for a bank

I tend not to overwiegh ROA. An ROA of 1.3% or more is good. Acutally a very high ROA may not be a good sign (possible that the bank is lending to high yield, high risk segment)

I also agree with prem’s point that if a bank has a low leverage, then earnings can expand more easily. To put it another way, the bank will have no need to access the capital market to raise equity to fund its growth (one of the problems being faced by several public sector banks).

All said, valuing and analysing a bank is far more diffcult (according to me) than other businesses. However the ROE approach can be taken as one approach to arrive at an estimate of intrinsic value. I acutally use this instrinsic value as a starting point and then adjust this number based on the other factors, after the bank meets the basic quality standards

More on Valuation of banks

Got the following comments on my previous post from prem sagar. Thought they were very valid points and hence I am posting my reponse to it seperately in a post.

Hi Rohit,

nice analysis. But I get some thoughts here.

1. What if the bank had been increasing leverage to increase or maintain higher ROE? The bank wud have maintained a 20% ROE, but leverage wud have gone higher and hence the risks. Would you not like to consider higher ROE maintained at stable net interest margins and stable net profit margins in your equation? Paying higher price to book just to maintain higher ROE can be a double edged sword where leverage can be dangerous. Dont we need to maintain our profitability and margin spread too?

2. What would you pay for a bank/nbfc with a low leverage (Say IDFC with leverage of around 4 times)..that has potential to increase leverage and hence ROE in future...as per your ROE equation, IDFC wud get a low Price to book.
3. Why shouldnt we consider ROA (assets net of NPA) instead of ROE in ur calculation? THis will show if constantly increased leverage was the reason in maintaining ROE or not.


I agree with all the above points. The post on bank valuation is a simplistic approach to valuing a bank. I always consider leverage an important variable expecially for a financial institution, such as a bank. As a matter of fact I tend to avoid companies with high leverage unless they are well run. Businesses with high leverage are extremely dependent on the quality of management. A small error by management can hurt the business very badly (note the number of banks and FI which have failed and been bailed out by the government on tax payers money).

What I should have put in my previous post is that all of the following factors being in favour, ROE can be used as a good variable to value a bank.

Factors
1. Leverage – This is represented by CAR (capital adequacy ratio). Higher the CAR, better the quality of the business. As a personal note, I prefer to select banks with CAR of atleast 10-12%
2. Level of NPA and asset quality. A bank can have high ROE and still have a lot of problems loans which are hidden by a practise called as greening of loans (give loan to an existing account to prevent the loan from defaulting)
3. Level of operating expense / Net interest income. This reflects the operating efficiency of the bank
4. Level of non-interest, fee based income. Higher the better.
5. Brand name, retail network and management quality. All fuzzy factors, but fairly important ones for a bank

I tend not to overwiegh ROA. An ROA of 1.3% or more is good. Acutally a very high ROA may not be a good sign (possible that the bank is lending to high yield, high risk segment)

I also agree with prem’s point that if a bank has a low leverage, then earnings can expand more easily. To put it another way, the bank will have no need to access the capital market to raise equity to fund its growth (one of the problems being faced by several public sector banks).

All said, valuing and analysing a bank is far more diffcult (according to me) than other businesses. However the ROE approach can be taken as one approach to arrive at an estimate of intrinsic value. I acutally use this instrinsic value as a starting point and then adjust this number based on the other factors, after the bank meets the basic quality standards

Valuation of Banks – some thoughts

I have been reading the book – The warren buffett way (previous post here). There are several instances of valuations in the book on various companies such as Cap cities/ABC, American express etc. One point which caught my attention was the comparison of a company to a Long term bond investment. Buffett has mentioned several times that he uses the long term bond rates for discount in the DCF model.

Using the above comment, I have used the following thought process to look at another way of valuing a bank (earlier post on the same topic here).

The current long term rate for a 10 year bond is say 7 % (example purpose). So I would be ready to pay 100 Rs for this bond (face value). Now if I have a bond, say Bond B (of similar risk) which pays 14 % on face value, I would be ready to pay around Rs 188 for a face value of Rs 100 for the Bond B (A 7% bond would give 196 Rs in 10 years v/s 370 Rs for the 14 % Bond).


Taking the analogy to equity, lets consider a bank which has an ROE of 14%. Assume a 10 year period for which the bank can maintain this ROE ( This is the crucial part as this is the assestment an investor has to make on the competitive advantage of the Bank and its ability to maintain the high ROE). Beyond the 10 year period the bank’s ROE returns to 7% and so the bank in investment profile is similar to a Long bond.

In the above case, the Bank is similar in its return profile to Bond B. So everything else being equal I would value this bank at 1.88 times Book value.

Ofcourse the above is a very simple sceanrio. But we can add more complexity to the above case and make it more realisitic

Case 1: The ROE is 20 %. This ROE can be maintained for 10 years as in the above example. In such as case, I would value the bank at 3.14 times book value.

Case 2 : The ROE is 14%, but the Excess returns can be maintained for 20 years instead of 10. In such as case the valuation can be at 3.55 times book value

Case 3 : ROE is 20% and the period is 20 years. In that case the bank can be valued at 9.9 times book value.

So the simple conclusion is that higher the ROE and the longer the period for which it can be maintained, the higher is the instrinsic value of the bank (which is basic Discounted flow approach).

The above is a more shorthand approach of valuing a bank. I would look at the valuation in the following way now,

- What is the ROE for the bank
- What is the adjusted book value (net of NPA)
- What is the likely duration of excess return (select only a bank which is well run and hence the duration is atleast 10 years)

Based on the above factors I would prefer to invest at 1.5 – 2 times the adjusted book value (keeping a reasonable margin of safety).

Valuation of Banks – some thoughts

I have been reading the book – The warren buffett way (previous post here). There are several instances of valuations in the book on various companies such as Cap cities/ABC, American express etc. One point which caught my attention was the comparison of a company to a Long term bond investment. Buffett has mentioned several times that he uses the long term bond rates for discount in the DCF model.

Using the above comment, I have used the following thought process to look at another way of valuing a bank (earlier post on the same topic here).

The current long term rate for a 10 year bond is say 7 % (example purpose). So I would be ready to pay 100 Rs for this bond (face value). Now if I have a bond, say Bond B (of similar risk) which pays 14 % on face value, I would be ready to pay around Rs 188 for a face value of Rs 100 for the Bond B (A 7% bond would give 196 Rs in 10 years v/s 370 Rs for the 14 % Bond).


Taking the analogy to equity, lets consider a bank which has an ROE of 14%. Assume a 10 year period for which the bank can maintain this ROE ( This is the crucial part as this is the assestment an investor has to make on the competitive advantage of the Bank and its ability to maintain the high ROE). Beyond the 10 year period the bank’s ROE returns to 7% and so the bank in investment profile is similar to a Long bond.

In the above case, the Bank is similar in its return profile to Bond B. So everything else being equal I would value this bank at 1.88 times Book value.

Ofcourse the above is a very simple sceanrio. But we can add more complexity to the above case and make it more realisitic

Case 1: The ROE is 20 %. This ROE can be maintained for 10 years as in the above example. In such as case, I would value the bank at 3.14 times book value.

Case 2 : The ROE is 14%, but the Excess returns can be maintained for 20 years instead of 10. In such as case the valuation can be at 3.55 times book value

Case 3 : ROE is 20% and the period is 20 years. In that case the bank can be valued at 9.9 times book value.

So the simple conclusion is that higher the ROE and the longer the period for which it can be maintained, the higher is the instrinsic value of the bank (which is basic Discounted flow approach).

The above is a more shorthand approach of valuing a bank. I would look at the valuation in the following way now,

- What is the ROE for the bank
- What is the adjusted book value (net of NPA)
- What is the likely duration of excess return (select only a bank which is well run and hence the duration is atleast 10 years)

Based on the above factors I would prefer to invest at 1.5 – 2 times the adjusted book value (keeping a reasonable margin of safety).

Value Traps

I think every value investor dreads a value trap which is basically a company, which seems cheap by historical standards and the gap between the price and the supposed intrinsic value does not close.

I found the following very useful comment from bill miller (he is a very famous money manager in the US whose fund has beaten the index for a straight 15 years)

"You never know for certain, but the nature of value traps is, they tend to have certain characteristics. Typically, one is that the valuation of the business or the industry is lower than its historical norms. The company or business normally has a fairly long history, so the historical normal valuations provide a lot of comfort. Therefore, when you get down toward the lower end of these valuations, value people find them attractive. The trap comes in when there's a secular change, where the fundamental economics of the business are changing or the industry is changing, and the market is slowly incorporating that into the stock price. So that would be the case over the last several years with newspapers. They are a good example of where historical valuation metrics aren't working."

The complete article is here


In addition found the following interesting quote from warren buffett

“Margin of Safety is the untapped pricing power in a business.”

Value Traps

I think every value investor dreads a value trap which is basically a company, which seems cheap by historical standards and the gap between the price and the supposed intrinsic value does not close.

I found the following very useful comment from bill miller (he is a very famous money manager in the US whose fund has beaten the index for a straight 15 years)

"You never know for certain, but the nature of value traps is, they tend to have certain characteristics. Typically, one is that the valuation of the business or the industry is lower than its historical norms. The company or business normally has a fairly long history, so the historical normal valuations provide a lot of comfort. Therefore, when you get down toward the lower end of these valuations, value people find them attractive. The trap comes in when there's a secular change, where the fundamental economics of the business are changing or the industry is changing, and the market is slowly incorporating that into the stock price. So that would be the case over the last several years with newspapers. They are a good example of where historical valuation metrics aren't working."

The complete article is here


In addition found the following interesting quote from warren buffett

“Margin of Safety is the untapped pricing power in a business.”

Further thoughts on pricing strength of a business

The following question was posed to me by Prem sagar on my previous post. The question made me think and I am posting my thoughts on what I think is a fairly important issue in investing (earlier post on pricing )


But what would u say for an industry like say auto ancillaries or retail-proxies like Bartronics, control print, etc where the opportunity is huge, but they have little or no pricing power?


According to me, pricing is an important variable to evaluate the presence of a competitive advantage or strength. A company with strong pricing power, will be able to sustain high returns for a long time and can increase its intrinsic value over time too. So if one were to buy a company with strong pricing power (with other factors in favour), then it is likely that the investment would work out well with passage of time as the company increases its intrinsic value. So such companies can be long term holdings in a portfolio

That said, it does not mean that companies without pricing power would not be good investments. If one can find a company with low pricing power (commodity business), but with some kind of competitive advantage and selling below its intrinsic value, then such a company can be good investment. I would however not hold such an investment too long, once the stock price is close to the intrinsic value as the likelyhood of an increase in the intrinsic value is less.

I do not have much insight into retail-proxies. However as far as auto-ancillaries are concerned, I have done a bit of analysis ( see here, and here) and have not found too many companies to invest in (mainly due to valuation issues). By the very nature of the industry, these companies have poor pricing power (except for retail), have a few large buyers (OEM) and not many have achieved economies of scale in their operation (this industry is still fairly fragmented). However some auto-ancillaries do posses a few competitive advantages such as a low cost position due to focus on specific segment (fasteners for sundaram clayton?) and good growth opportunities. However as I have written earlier, I would invest in these companies only at a fair discount to intrinsic value and sell once the stock reaches the intrinsic value. I would really not hold the stock for a long term.

Further thoughts on pricing strength of a business

The following question was posed to me by Prem sagar on my previous post. The question made me think and I am posting my thoughts on what I think is a fairly important issue in investing (earlier post on pricing )


But what would u say for an industry like say auto ancillaries or retail-proxies like Bartronics, control print, etc where the opportunity is huge, but they have little or no pricing power?


According to me, pricing is an important variable to evaluate the presence of a competitive advantage or strength. A company with strong pricing power, will be able to sustain high returns for a long time and can increase its intrinsic value over time too. So if one were to buy a company with strong pricing power (with other factors in favour), then it is likely that the investment would work out well with passage of time as the company increases its intrinsic value. So such companies can be long term holdings in a portfolio

That said, it does not mean that companies without pricing power would not be good investments. If one can find a company with low pricing power (commodity business), but with some kind of competitive advantage and selling below its intrinsic value, then such a company can be good investment. I would however not hold such an investment too long, once the stock price is close to the intrinsic value as the likelyhood of an increase in the intrinsic value is less.

I do not have much insight into retail-proxies. However as far as auto-ancillaries are concerned, I have done a bit of analysis ( see here, and here) and have not found too many companies to invest in (mainly due to valuation issues). By the very nature of the industry, these companies have poor pricing power (except for retail), have a few large buyers (OEM) and not many have achieved economies of scale in their operation (this industry is still fairly fragmented). However some auto-ancillaries do posses a few competitive advantages such as a low cost position due to focus on specific segment (fasteners for sundaram clayton?) and good growth opportunities. However as I have written earlier, I would invest in these companies only at a fair discount to intrinsic value and sell once the stock reaches the intrinsic value. I would really not hold the stock for a long term.

Learnings from the Book: The warren buffett way

I have been reading again the excellent Book ‘The warren buffett way’. This book was my first exposure to Warren buffett and his approach to Investing. I have followed and learnt from him since then. The following were the key re-learnings I have had over the past few days (I am yet to finish the book)


- ROE (Return on equity) is one the most important indicator of the economic performance of a company. A company can raise this measure through five different means
o Higher Asset turns (Sales / Total assets)
o Higher margins
o Higher leverage
o Cheaper leverage
o Lower taxes.

I have seen the above happen for several companies in the past few years and have seen the stock price follow the improvement in ROE

For ex: Bluestar (better asset turns), ICICI bank (cheaper leverage, higher margins).

- Inflation does not improve ROE and actually reduces the net return to an investor
- The best companies are the ones which have strong franchies like crisil. Over time some of them become weak franchises. Further weakning of the franchise leads to a good business and then finally to a commodity company.
- Pricing strength is a key attribute of Franchises. These companies can raise prices even when the demand is flat and can earn good returns.

Learnings from the Book: The warren buffett way

I have been reading again the excellent Book ‘The warren buffett way’. This book was my first exposure to Warren buffett and his approach to Investing. I have followed and learnt from him since then. The following were the key re-learnings I have had over the past few days (I am yet to finish the book)


- ROE (Return on equity) is one the most important indicator of the economic performance of a company. A company can raise this measure through five different means
o Higher Asset turns (Sales / Total assets)
o Higher margins
o Higher leverage
o Cheaper leverage
o Lower taxes.

I have seen the above happen for several companies in the past few years and have seen the stock price follow the improvement in ROE

For ex: Bluestar (better asset turns), ICICI bank (cheaper leverage, higher margins).

- Inflation does not improve ROE and actually reduces the net return to an investor
- The best companies are the ones which have strong franchies like crisil. Over time some of them become weak franchises. Further weakning of the franchise leads to a good business and then finally to a commodity company.
- Pricing strength is a key attribute of Franchises. These companies can raise prices even when the demand is flat and can earn good returns.

Blue star india – A quick look

Blue star india is primarily in the commercial air conditioning and refrigeration business. The three main business segments are

1.Central air conditioning: This is the main business for blue star. It accounts for 70 %+ of the company’s revenue, has been growing at 25 % and has a pre-tax ROCE of almost 60 %. Blue star is fairly dominant in this sector and has a good market share of almost 30%. This sector is dependent on industrial demand, IT/ITES sector and retail. Lately the industrial sector, IT/ITES and retail sector have been boyant due to which Blue star has a good backlog of orders.

2.Cooling products: This comprises of Window, split A/c and other retail products such as water coolers, cold storage etc. This is a fairly competitive segment with strong brands such as carrier aircon and other vendors. This segment had a good volume growth and revenue growth of 30%. However as this segment is competitive, the pre-tax ROCE is at a respectable 15%.

3.Professional electronics and industrial equipment: This segment had a good growth last year on a small base of 60 Crs. The segment is small accounting for less than 10% of the total revenue. The pre-tax ROCE is high at almost 70%+.

Key competitive strengths
Blue star has key advantages via a strong brand in its key segments. It has a good reputation in terms of project execution and after sales service for the institutional segment. There is certain amount of lockin once a customer (especially if it is an institutional one) has selected and installed a blue star system. Subsequent orders would likely be for the same vendor. Due to high market share, blue star has certain demand and production economies of scale, which allows it to be a low cost provider. The central air conditioning segment is project driven, where project skills, experience and scale matters as the margins are fairly low (pre-tax margins were < 10 %) and hence a company has to be efficient to be a profitable business.

Problems areas
The company has performed well on most parameters such as revenue growth, NPM, ROE etc. However for the last 1-2 years, the free cash flow of the company has been dropping. The current year’s FCF was around 40 % of the operating profits. The main culprits have been account recievables and inventory. The recievables ratio has dropped from 6 to 4.9 and the inventory ratio has dropped from 9 to 7.9. The drops are not alarming and are still good in an absolute sense. However they need to be watched closely to see if the growth is not coming a high price (write-offs of bad debts and inventory later)

Valuation
Assuming (a big assumption though), the company can manage its Working capital, the Net profit can be taken as Free cash flow. The last year EPS (post split) was 5.8. The current year EPS should come be conservatively at 7. Using a DCF (with various assumptions) I would value the company roughly at 140-160 Rs/ Share. My personal opinion is that the stock is fairly priced.

Disclosure : I have owned the stock for the past few years.

Blue star india – A quick look

Blue star india is primarily in the commercial air conditioning and refrigeration business. The three main business segments are

1.Central air conditioning: This is the main business for blue star. It accounts for 70 %+ of the company’s revenue, has been growing at 25 % and has a pre-tax ROCE of almost 60 %. Blue star is fairly dominant in this sector and has a good market share of almost 30%. This sector is dependent on industrial demand, IT/ITES sector and retail. Lately the industrial sector, IT/ITES and retail sector have been boyant due to which Blue star has a good backlog of orders.

2.Cooling products: This comprises of Window, split A/c and other retail products such as water coolers, cold storage etc. This is a fairly competitive segment with strong brands such as carrier aircon and other vendors. This segment had a good volume growth and revenue growth of 30%. However as this segment is competitive, the pre-tax ROCE is at a respectable 15%.

3.Professional electronics and industrial equipment: This segment had a good growth last year on a small base of 60 Crs. The segment is small accounting for less than 10% of the total revenue. The pre-tax ROCE is high at almost 70%+.

Key competitive strengths
Blue star has key advantages via a strong brand in its key segments. It has a good reputation in terms of project execution and after sales service for the institutional segment. There is certain amount of lockin once a customer (especially if it is an institutional one) has selected and installed a blue star system. Subsequent orders would likely be for the same vendor. Due to high market share, blue star has certain demand and production economies of scale, which allows it to be a low cost provider. The central air conditioning segment is project driven, where project skills, experience and scale matters as the margins are fairly low (pre-tax margins were < 10 %) and hence a company has to be efficient to be a profitable business.

Problems areas
The company has performed well on most parameters such as revenue growth, NPM, ROE etc. However for the last 1-2 years, the free cash flow of the company has been dropping. The current year’s FCF was around 40 % of the operating profits. The main culprits have been account recievables and inventory. The recievables ratio has dropped from 6 to 4.9 and the inventory ratio has dropped from 9 to 7.9. The drops are not alarming and are still good in an absolute sense. However they need to be watched closely to see if the growth is not coming a high price (write-offs of bad debts and inventory later)

Valuation
Assuming (a big assumption though), the company can manage its Working capital, the Net profit can be taken as Free cash flow. The last year EPS (post split) was 5.8. The current year EPS should come be conservatively at 7. Using a DCF (with various assumptions) I would value the company roughly at 140-160 Rs/ Share. My personal opinion is that the stock is fairly priced.

Disclosure : I have owned the stock for the past few years.