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Sterlite Technologies Ltd>
  • CMP : 131.5 Chg : -2.35 (-1.76%)
  • Target : 220.0 (24.29%)
  • Target Period : 12 Month

23 Nov 2022

Recovery begins!

About The Stock

Sterlite Technologies (STL) is a leading telecommunication infrastructure player with offerings in in optical fiber and cables, hyper-scale network design, and deployment and network software

Update

Recovery was led by operating profits improvement after 3 quarters of losses

  • Revenue came in at ₹ 1768 crore in Q2FY23, up 12.3% QoQ, led by 15% QoQ growth in optical (product) business at ₹ 1313 crore. Services revenues at ₹ 463 crore was up 11% QoQ, driven by India execution.
  • EBITDA came in at ₹ 173 crore, up 51.8% QoQ, with margins at 9.8%, up 255 bps QoQ, led by improvement in products margins at 20% vs. 14.2% in Q1. Services margin at 2.6% (down 550 bps QoQ) was depressed owing to UK business losses.
  • PAT was at ₹ 44 crore, vs. ₹ 20 crore loss in Q1, led by superior EBITDA
What should Investors do?

STL share price has grown by ~22% over last 5 years.

STL is uniquely positioned to benefit from 5G/ FTTH deployment cycle both domestically and globally. We believe that with renewed focus on ramping down/exiting loss making segment and focussing on improving services segment profitability, STL will likely see improvement earnings momentum ahead. Thus, we upgrade to BUY from HOLD earlier

Target Price and Valuation

We value STL at ₹ 220 (₹ 295, earlier), at 18x FY24 P/E.

Key Triggers for future price performance
  • Transition into solution provider from product/services currently
  • Demand offtake from expanded and overall fiber/cable pricing trajectory
  • Improvement in leverage which has gone up due to expansion and stretched working capital in services business
Alternate Stock Idea

Apart from STL, in our coverage we like Bharti Airtel.

  • A play on favourable industry structure and superior digital play
  • BUY with target price of ₹ 960

Key Financial Summary

(Year-end March) FY19 FY20 FY21 FY22 5 yr CAGR (FY17-22) FY23E FY24E 2 yr CAGR (FY22-24E)
Net Sales (| crore) 5,087.3 5,154.4 4,825.2 5,754.3 17.3 7,171.7 8,476.1 21.4
EBITDA (| crore) 1,127.2 1,069.3 810.7 534.8 0.6 784.7 1,271.4 54.2
Net Profit (| crore) 562.8 433.9 275.5 62.0 -21.0 161.0 480.3 178.4
EPS (|) 14.0 10.8 6.9 1.6 - 4.0 12.1 -
P/E (x) 12.7 16.4 25.5 113.8 - 43.8 14.7 -
Price / Book (x) 4.1 3.7 3.5 3.6 - 3.3 2.9 -
EV/EBITDA (x) 7.8 8.4 11.6 18.3 - 12.8 7.8 -
RoE (%) 33.0 25.0 14.0 2.0 - 7.6 19.7 -
RoCE (%) 27.8 20.9 12.9 5.7 - 9.4 17.1 -
- - - - - - - - -
Source: Company, ICICI Direct Research

Key performance highlight and outlook

Improving Outlook…

STL has stated that OFC capacity utilisations are at 88% (based on capacity of ~37 million sq metres).  STL market share (ex-China) grew to ~11% in H1FY23 vs. ~9% in FY22, led by sharp increase in OFC market share in Americas, where it enjoyed ~14% market share in H1FY23 vs. ~7% in FY22. The company has also maintained that, going ahead, growth should be driven by growing OFC volumes (increasing market share, increasing Optical Interconnect attach rate and developing new products) and Consolidate the services business (focus on profitable growth and reduce working capital). We highlight that this is a complete shift from earlier stance of expanding services business, which has had stretched working capital cycle history. We bake in revenues CAGR of ~21.4% in FY22-24E. We expect H2FY22 revenues to remain healthy driven by continued robust capacity utilisation in the product segment as well as improved traction in services business. We build in margins to recovery to 15% in FY24 with improved margins in services (led by project mix) and reduced losses led by exit from wireless software business.

Strong order inflows; short closes low margins orders…

The order book was at ~| 11697 crore (vs. | 11207 crore in Q3), of which O&M portion was 22%. The company secured new orders of ~| 3199 crore, the highest order intake in the last 3-1/2 years. It has also short closed an order book of | 941 crores majorly in services and wireless business, in line with its focus of executing projects at desired level of profitability. The orders were closed after discussion agreement with the respective customers. The key order wins in Q1 such as a) Multi-million dollar, multi-year contract with a leading North American broadband connectivity player for optical fibre cable, b) Multi-million dollar, multi-year contract with a European telco for optical interconnect, c) Optical Interconnect solutions for a leading European Alt-net player, d) Collaboration with Vocus group, Australia to provide Optical fibre cables, e) National Long distance roll out in multiple states for a leading Indian telco and f) Fibre roll out for a leading Indian telco

Divesting/ramping down the non-core/loss making segments…

In line with its strategy to focus on selective segments, the company has divested the IDS business in Q2FY23 to Hexatronic Group. IDS operated in a niche segment of inside data center connectivity and containment solutions. The initial consideration for 80% stake is about ~9 million pounds. The earn out consideration is based on actual EBITDA achieved for the year ending CY22. The company recognized a gain of | 25 crore in Q2 over | 117 crore of book value. The company has also have ramped down the Wireless business with no additional investments in capital and manpower from Q4FY23. The company expects operating profit to go up by ~| 40-50 crore per quarter from Q4FY23 onwards

Other highlights

  • The company indicated that net capex during the H1 was | 247 and it expects capex of | 500 crore for FY23
  • Net debt stood at over | 3239 crore vs. | 2782 crore in FY22 owing to increased working capital from services business. It expects to release of working capital with completion in certain projects. Going ahead, the company expects services working capital to come down to 180 days from 270 days currently.
  • Company targets to be profitable in UK with execution ramp up by H1FY24.

STL is uniquely positioned to benefit from 5G/ FTTH deployment cycle both domestically and globally. We believe that with renewed focus on ramping down/exiting loss making segment and focussing on improving services segment profitability, STL will likely see improvement earnings momentum ahead. Thus, we upgrade to BUY from HOLD earlier and assign at target price of | 220, valuing the company at 18x FY24 P/E.

Disclaimer

ANALYST CERTIFICATION

I/We, Bhupendra Tiwary, MBA, CFA, 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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RATING RATIONALE

ICICI Direct endeavours to provide objective opinions and recommendations. ICICI Direct assigns ratings to its stocks according -to their notional target price vs. current market price and then categorizes them as Buy, Hold, Reduce and Sell. The performance horizon is two years unless specified and the notional target price is defined as the analysts valuation for a stock

Buy: >15%

Hold: -5%to 15%;

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Sell: <-15% 

Pankaj Pandey

Head – Research

pankaj.pandey@icicisecurities.com

 

 

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