Thursday, April 25, 2013

Manappuram Finance Ltd: Buy
Manappuram Finance is a leading national player in its core activity of gold loans. Manappuram Finance may not face much under recovery of revenues on certain gold loan portfolios due to a constant surge in the gold prices in the international markets during the last few days. Besides this the loans are given for the short term (even LTV is maintained at around 60%) and hence, most of the fears are unfounded--gold is up even today in the MCX. 
The company was the First NBFC in Kerala to receive a Certificate of Registration issued by the RBI. It was the first Kerala based NBFC to get a Credit Rating in 1995 of "MA" (current rating MA+) from ICRA, recognising the company's ability to make timely repayments of the principal and interest under its then existing public deposits programme. Manappuram Finance was one of the very first NBFCs from Kerala to go for a Public Issue of its shares in 1995. In fact, the company has been consistently making profits and consistently paying dividends from the very first full year of operations.
The company was also the first NBFC from Kerala to issue bonus shares in the ratio of 1:1 in 2007 and then, repeat the feat twice, in 2010 and in 2011 (making it three such instances in five years). Moreover, in 2007, Manappuram Finance Ltd became the first Kerala based NBFC to receive foreign Investment from FIIs, and also get the highest short term credit rating of A1+ from ICRA. In 2010, it became the very first Kerala-based company to offer ESOPs (Employee Stock Option Plan) to its middle and senior management functionaries. In April 2011, it became only the second listed company from Kerala to have its shares traded in the "A-Group" at the Bombay stock exchange.