Tuesday, January 07, 2014

Gujarat Pipavav, Adani and Essar best bests among shipping stocks in 2014: Sudip Bandyopadhyay
Dec 30, 2013: In a chat with ET Now, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, President, Destimoney Securities, shares his views on ports/shipping companies. Excerpts:

ET Now: What is the call on ports/shipping companies?
Sudip Bandyopadhyay: The Baltic Dry has moved up and that has helped the entire sector -- both ports as well as shipping companies. If you look at some of the listed port companies, all of them are available at excellent valuation at current stage. Having said that, with Indian economy still not out of the woods, one has to take a slightly long term view if you are buying into the ports.

Hence, you can take a call between Essar Ports, Adani Ports or Gujarat Pipavav that are good companies. Some of them have got problem of debt but otherwise, they all have excellent ports and have a great potential subject to Indian economy recovery.

If I have to pick one out of three, Gujarat Pipavav will be my choice. The number two I will pick is Adani, and third will be Essar. As far as the shipping companies are concerned, there is a little bit of problem with SCI. Thereforem, the PSU giant SCI will not be recommended at this stage because their fleet is aging.