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  • CMP : 1,008.9 Chg : 8.60 (0.86%)
  • Target : 8,650.0 (16.44%)
  • Target Period : 12-18 Month

23 Oct 2022

Sustainable growth in AUM, PAT; valuation justified

About The Stock

Bajaj Finance, a strong NBFC with digital footprints made a strong comeback with AUM growth reaching ~28-30% YoY. Harnessing its large franchise base digitally offers huge opportunity. Housing forms 32% of the book.

  • Bajaj Finance maintained strong operating metrics over various credit and rate cycles leading to >18% RoE and > 4% RoA leading to 2x
Q2FY23

Confidence on growth sustainability to support valuations.

  • NII growth at 31% YoY to ₹ 7000 crore, marginal uptick in cost of funds
  • GNPA, NNPA ratio declined to 1.17%, 0.44%, respectively, in Q2FY23
  • PAT grew 88% YoY, 7% QoQ to ₹ 2840 crore
  • In Q2FY23, reported RoE at 23.57% and RoA at 5.4% (annualised)
What should Investors do?

The stock has given ~2x returns over the past two years. We believe since the fintech story is embedded in this business, valuations should stay at premium. We raise PAT estimates for FY23E & FY24E by 13% & 2.1%, respectively. No plans to convert to a bank on an immediate basis.

We maintain BUY rating on the stock, offering compounding returns

Target Price and Valuation

Omnipresence strategy and organic momentum building up offers comfort on growth sustainability. Same holds key for premium valuations. We marginally revise target price to ₹ 8650 from ₹ 8500 keeping multiple same at 7.5x FY24E ABV.

Key Triggers for future price performance
  • Adding 10-11 mn customers in a year. Digital transformation, client additions and ambitious targets on AUM growth (25-27% CAGR to ₹ 3.8–4 lakh crore by FY25) to boost profitability
  • Strong deposit base and plans to raise to 25% of overall liabilities and reach ~₹ 50000 crore by end FY23E
  • Stable asset quality and controlled costs expected to continue
  • RoE at >18-19% and RoA at >4% with guidance over 4.5%
Alternate Stock Ideas

Besides Bajaj Finance, in our coverage we also like Axis Bank.

  • Axis Bank is the third largest private sector bank in India with a balance sheet size of ₹ 11.85 lakh crore as on September 2022
  • We have a BUY rating with a target price of ₹ 970

Key Financial Summary

Particulars FY19 FY20 FY21 FY22 3 year CAGR_(FY19-FY22) FY23E FY24E 2 year CAGR_(FY22-24E)
NII (| crore) 11,863.6 16,900.6 17,254.1 21,891.8 22.7 28,484.1 35,074.4 26.6
PPP (| crore) 7,680.5 11,251.6 11,960.8 14,314.8 23.1 18,583.9 22,450.2 25.2
PAT (| crore) 3,995.0 5,263.8 4,419.8 7,035.8 20.8 11,501.0 13,989.0 41.0
ABV (|) 313.4 534.1 596.9 709.6 - 859.5 1,152.4 -
P/E 107.1 83.0 101.0 63.6 - 39.0 32.8 -
P/ABV 23.7 13.9 12.4 10.5 - 8.6 6.4 -
RoA 3.0 2.8 2.3 3.7 - 4.9 4.7 -
RoE 22.4 20.2 12.8 17.5 - 23.4 21.6 -
Source: Company, ICICI Direct Research

Variance Table

  Q2FY23 Q2FY23E Q2FY22 YoY (%) Q1FY23 QoQ (%)   Comments
NII 7,001 7,212 5,336 31.2 6,638 5.5   Stellar growth driven AUM traction
Other Income 1 3 1 13.2 2 -33.0    
                 
                 
Staff cost 1,240 1,237 937 32.3 1,183 4.8    
Other Operating Expenses 1,275 11,360 1,095 16.4 1,199 6.4   Opex to NII to remain elevated due to investments
Opex to NII(%) 35.9 174.7 38.1 -5.7 35.9 0.1   C/I ratio stable QoQ to 35.9%
PPP 4,487 4,606 3,305 35.8 4,257 5.4    
Provision 734 830 1,300 -43.5 755 -2.7   Decline in credit cost led by improved asset quality
PBT 3,753 3,776 2,004 87.2 3,503 7.1    
Tax Outgo 972 963 523 85.6 907 7.2    
PAT 2,781 2,813 1,481 87.8 2,596 7.1   Healthy top line growth and fall in credit cost boosts PAT
                 
Key Metrics                
GNPA 2,530 2,641 4,103 -38.3 2,539 -0.4   Asset quality trend continue to improve
NNPA 953 1,068 1,826 -47.8 1,017 -6.3  
AUM 2,18,366 2,18,350 1,66,937 30.8 2,04,018 7.0   Healthy growth driven by consumer B2B and SME lending

 

Q2FY23 Earnings Conference Call Highlights

  • Opex to NII to remain at 35-36% for FY23. Consolidated RoA guidance of 4.5-4.7%
  • On track to go fully digital across all products and services on app by January 2023 and web by March 2023. By March 2023 Bajaj Finance will be fully digital
  • For Bajaj Housing, AUM was up 42% at | 62,931 crore against | 44,429 crore as of September 30, 2021. Home loans AUM grew 37%, loan against property grew 37%, Lease rental discounting grew 72% and developer finance grew 68%
  • Phase 1 of app platform is live on both app stores. Print 1 has gone live with full consumer application journey for personal loans, EMI card, co-brand Credit Cards and two-wheeler marketplace. Sprint 1 has significant new feature additions in credit card, gold loan, EMI card services, new calculators along with enhanced customer request section
  • Phase 2 will have 3 sprints. Sprint 1 is as scheduled live on August 31, 2022, for sprint 2 on November 15, 2022 and sprint 3 on January 31, 2023
  • Deposits book was at | 39,422 crore as of September 30, 2022. In Q2, the net deposit growth was | 5,320 crore. Deposits contributed 22% of consolidated borrowings as of September 30, 2022. The company is on track to deliver its long-term goal of 25% of consolidated borrowings from deposits in the medium term
  • Quarterly run rate of | 50000-54000 growth in net balance sheet in FY23. B2B disbursement run rate of | 60000-64000 in FY23. Comfortable to add 10-11 mn new customers on a full year basis
  • All Phase 1 features of the issuance stack are live on the app store. Sprint 1 of phase 2 with regulatory changes and new category additions like credit card is live on play store
  • Sprint 2 is on track to go live in Q3FY23. This release will provide enhanced experience on UPI registration and payments transactions enabled through direct API with PSP Bank, PPI interoperability through UPI railroad and unified dispute and issue resolution (UDIR) mechanism
  • Overall stage 2 assets were at | 3,155 crore as of September 30, 2022 against | 3,569 crore as of June 30, 2022. Overall stage 3 assets were at
  • | 2,530 crore as of September 30, 2022 against | 2,539 crore
  • BHFL – Capital infusion of | 2500 crore in Q1FY23 and well capitalised for next two years. BHFL has repo and EBLR linked bank borrowings but the contribution is lower
  • AUM per client in cross sell franchise used to be | 55000, which is now
    | 60000 and profit per customer used to be | 1700 per customer, which is now | 3000
  • Tad below 9500 employees in recovery channel

Disclaimer

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I/We, Kajal Gandhi, CA, Vishal Narnolia, MBA and Pravin Mule, MBA, M.com, Research Analysts Research Analysts, authors and the names subscribed to this report, hereby certify that all of the views expressed in this research report accurately reflect our views about the subject issuer(s) or securities. We also certify that no part of our compensation was, is, or will be directly or indirectly related to the specific recommendation(s) or view(s) in this report. It is also confirmed that above mentioned Analysts of this report have not received any compensation from the companies mentioned in the report in the preceding twelve months and do not serve as an officer, director or employee of the companies mentioned in the report.     

 

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