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  • CMP : 341.6 Chg : -3.0 (-0.87%)
  • Target : 770.0 (10.0%)
  • Target Period : 12 Month

28 Jul 2022

Margins may see downward trajectory

About The Stock

Sonata Software (Sonata) offers IT services (30%) and product licensing & deployment (70%).

  • The company provides IT services to travel, retail, agri & commodities and manufacturing and software vendors
  • Net debt free and healthy double digit return ratio (with RoCE of >30%)
Q1FY23 Results

Sonata reported Q2FY23 numbers.

  • IT services dollar revenues increased 2% QoQ , 3.9% in CC
  • EBITDA margins in IT services declined 90 bps QoQ
  • The company announced bonus shares in the 1:3 ratio
What should Investors do?

Sonata’s share price has grown by ~5.4x over the past five years (from ~₹ 163 in July 2017 to ~₹ 700 levels in July 2022).

  • We revised rating to HOLD from BUY on the stock
Target Price and Valuation

We value Sonata at ₹ 770 i.e. 17x P/E on FY24E EPS.

Key Triggers for future price performance
  • Strong digital capabilities helping it for accelerated digital revenue growth enhancing digital revenue mix. i.e 73% of mix now vs 68% a year ago
  • Upgrades in Microsoft Dynamics and tapping fortune 1000 clients in the medium to large category bode well for revenue growth
  • Robust hiring trend & inorganic growth prompt us to build IT service dollar revenue growth of over 18.5% CAGR over FY22-24E
Alternate Stock Idea

Apart from Sonata, in our IT coverage we also like Infosys.

  • Strong revenue guidance prompts us to be positive on the stock
  •  BUY with a target price of ₹ 1,760

Key Financial Summary

Particulars FY19 FY20 FY21 FY22 5 Year CAGR(FY17-FY22) FY23E FY24E 2 Year CAGR (FY22-FY24E)
Net Sales 2,960.9 3,743.3 4,228.1 5,553.4 18.6 6,681.8 7,799.3 18.5
EBITDA 335.6 372.8 379.4 463.8 19.3 524.0 647.7 18.2
EBITDA Margin (%) 11.3 10.0 9.0 8.4 - 7.8 8.3 -
PAT 248.9 276.9 244.0 376.5 19.1 373.8 468.7 11.6
EPS (|) 24.0 26.7 23.5 36.2 - 36.0 45.1 -
P/E (x) 29.5 26.3 29.8 19.3 - 19.5 15.5 -
RoNW (%) 32.4 41.4 26.9 34.2 - 29.9 32.6 -
RoCE (%) 42.3 44.7 33.5 39.8 - 35.5 39.2 -
Source: Company, ICICI Direct Research

Key takeaways of recent quarter & conference call highlights

  • IT service segment dollar revenues increased 2% QoQ to US$56.8 million, (3.9% in CC terms) while rupee revenue came in at | 436.8 crore, 5.5% QoQ growth. Product business revenues increased by 27.8% QoQ to | 1,343.1 crore. Total revenues increased by 21.5% QoQ to | 1,778.9 crore. The company indicated that due to supply side challenges some projects were delayed impacting revenue for the quarter
  • IT service EBITDA margin (including other income) declined ~90 bps QoQ to 26.6% while that of product business declined by ~50 bps to 3.3%. Consolidated EBITDA margins declined by 150 bps to 9%. The company indicated that the margins were impacted by the wage hikes & investment in the new senior management team. The company indicated that it did wage hike for selected employees in Q3FY22 while wage hikes for senior management was done effective April 01,2022. The company indicated that investment in talent will continue in the subsequent quarters (which includes talent investments into recently opened delivery centres in Canada, Mexico and Ireland) and management expects FY23 margins to be in the range of 22-23% in IT services.
  • IT services revenues were aided by the US, which reported 2% QoQ & 42.7% YoY growth. Europe region revenue declined by 2.7% QoQ while RoW grew by 6.8% growth. The company indicated that the cross currency impact on Europe region higher impacting the revenue
  • The company has strengthened senior management team at the company. The company appointed Mr Samir Dhar as CEO from 8th April 2022. Mr Srikar Reddy will continue as MD and will transition to Mr Samir Dhar over the next 9-12 months. In his last role, he served as CEO of Global Markets and Industries at Virtusa. It also appointed Balaji Kumar as Chief Human Resource Officer; he joined in from LTI. The other appointment includes, Mr. Roshan Shetty as Chief Revenue Officer, Mr. Hemant Kumar Bhardwaj as Chief Marketing Officer. 
  • The company mentioned that Retail continue to be its focus vertical. The bifurcation of essential and non-essential tech spend is no more valid in the post pandemic world. The company said since footfalls coming back at the pre-covid levels, retailers are confident of continued spending. The client spend are focused on customer experience side, cloud transformation and data analytics.  
    • The company indicated that demand environment continue to be strong. Travel vertical is witnessing a traction with opening up economies & it expects travel to be recover back to pre covid levels by Q3. The company indicated that the demand for domestic cloud business & data analytics is increasing. The company is confident of achieving revenue growth of 20% in FY23 despite macroeconomic factors
    • The company expects to enhance its wallet share in Microsoft account, its key customer. The company indicated that Micorsoft would be doing its annual budgeting somewhere in Aug and the company is looking to align its investment accordingly for the next fiscal. For Microsoft it worked on 4 areas i) Microsoft product engineering ii) customer service function iii) internal IT team on dynamic and analytics implementation iv) consulting function.
    • The company indicated that it it will continue investing in the talent front to address the supply side challenges. The company mentioned that it had opened development centre in Canada, Mexico & Ireland. The company also indicate it will hire employees in US & Australia. The company also indicated that it will do campus hiring of 600 fresher’s who are expected to join the company over next 2 quarters
    • The company indicated that attrition was down on quarterly annualised basis & it expects it to moderate further. The company hired 50 net new employees (36 in International & 14 in Domestic) taking its total employee strength to 5,208 (5,034 in International & 174 in domestic)
    • The revenue from top clients of the company has witnessed some moderation. Top 5/10/20 client’s revenues grew by 18.8/21.7%/25.9% respectively.  Digital revenues contribution remained steady at 73%.
    • The company informed that it had merged Sopris Systems, LLC a wholly owned subsidiary of Sonata Software North America into Sonata Software North America
  • The company announced bonus shares in the ratio of 1:3, i.e. 1 bonus shares for every 3 shares held by the shareholders on the record date. The company indicated that bonus shares will be credited within 2 months from the Board approval i.e by 24th September 2022
 
Variance Analysis
 
   Q1FY23   Q4FY22   YoY (%)   Q4FY22   QoQ (%)  Comments
 Revenue         1,779        1,269          40.2        1,464            21.5 IT services revenue grew by 5.5% QoQ while product revenues increased by 27.8% QoQ , resulting in 21.5% QoQ growth
Employee expenses           214           168          27.7           205              4.4  
Purchase of stock-in trade & other        1,321           935          41.3        1,036            27.5  
Gross Margin           244           166          46.8           222              9.7  
Gross margin (%)          13.7          13.1  61 bps           15.2  -147 bps   
Other expenses           102             65          56.8           114           (10.4)  
             
EBITDA           142           101          40.3           108            31.0  
EBITDA Margin (%)            8.0            8.0  0 bps             7.4  58 bps  EBITDA margin expansion was restricted due to higher employee expenses amid wage hikes
Depreciation & amortisation             13             10          31.1             13             (0.8)  
EBIT           129             91          41.3             95            35.4  
EBIT Margin (%)            7.2            7.2  5 bps             6.5  74 bps   
 Other income (less interest)              14             24        (39.1)             41           (64.6)  
PBT           143           115          24.7           136              5.4  
Tax paid             35             28          25.9             35              1.3  
PAT           108             87          24.2           101              6.8  

Disclaimer

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