Billionaire Radhakishan Damani Adds Glittering Sparkler Stock To Multi-Bagger Portfolio

Radhakishan Damani, the legendary stock wizard, is so reclusive that his visit to Dalal Street on Thursday went almost unnoticed by the punters who throng the area and keep a 24×7 vigil. The veteran investor quietly walked upto the Thangamayil Jewellery counter and placed an order for 244,584 shares at Rs. 278.05 each and handed over payment of Rs. 6.80 crore.

The Billionaire was careful not to use his own name. Instead, he bought the stock in the name of ‘Derive Investments’, one of his investment companies (the other is Bright Star Investments’).

Varinder Bansal, the ever vigilant reporter at CNBC TV18, was the first to break the sensational news.

Derive investment bought Thangamayil Jewellery today

— Varinder Bansal (@varinder_bansal) July 21, 2016

It may be recalled that Varinder Bansal has won rich praise from the cognoscenti for busting the infamous “Rakesh Jhunjhunwala – Surana Solar scam” and also his fearless reporting in the Ricoh India fraud case where he demanded accountability from the management and voiced the angst of thousands of small shareholders who are helplessly trapped in the stock. He has also revealed top-secrets of Bollywood sex symbol Kimi Katkar’s 32-bagger stock pick.

Why Radhakishan Damani bought Thangamayil Jewellery, a micro-cap of Rs. 413 crore market capitalisation, is not difficult to understand. The reasons are similar to those which prompted Brahmal Vasudevan’s Creador / Idrai to buy the stock of PC Jeweller. These reasons include:

(i) The size of the domestic gems and jewelry business is a mammoth Rs. 3000Bn. The market is growing at a CAGR of 16%. The organized players have a 27% market share. Thangamayil Jewellery is one of the large national players and enjoys a lion’s share amongst the organized players;

(ii) Thangamayil Jewellery is on a strong growth trajectory. It has aggressive expansion plan in Metros, Tier I and Tier II towns;

(iii) The soft gold rates augers well for jewellery companies as the margins will increase;

(iv) The Government’s decision to roll back the 1% tax collection requirement on purchases of gold jewellery worth Rs. 2 lakhs and above has removed the hurdle over jewellery stocks.

[*C] Consolidated     [*S] Standalone

Five point checklist to evaluate micro-cap stocks:

At this stage, we must apply the five point checklist formulated by Peter Rabover, the fund manager of Artko Capital LP, to evaluate the investment-worthiness of micro-cap stocks:

(i) The company must have high Returns on Invested Capital (ROIC):

Thangamayil Jewellery does not score well on this point because its RoE is 5.39 and the RoCE is 5.39.

In contrast, PC Jeweller has a RoE of 19 and a RoCE of 18.97.

However, given the dominant nature of the brands owned by Thangamayil Jewellery and its expansion plans, Radhakishan Damani may be expecting a dramatic improvement in the RoE and RoCE, which will lead to a re-rating of the stock.

The other points formulated by Peter Rabover relating to (ii) quality earnings, (iii) clean balance sheet, (iv) high promoter holding and (v) simple business are answered well by Thangamayil Jewellery. The promoters’ holding is very high at 70%.

It is worth noting that Creador / Idria is already basking in gains of 50% on its investment in PC Jeweller.

PC Jeweller is much larger than Thangamayil Jewellery. While PC Jeweller has a market capitalisation of Rs. 7,113 crore, Thangamayil Jewellery is at only Rs. 413 crore. This implies that the growth trajectory of the latter may be better than the former, if it steps on the gas.

It will be interesting to watch whether Thangamayil Jewellery will be able to match the spectacular performance of PC Jeweller and deliver more gains than the latter has done!