I went through most of this thread and thanks for the hard work in bringing the information together. Here are some points from my research on Pokarna.
- There has been a question on timing of sales growth for Quantra. Here is what I have pieced together as the chronology of events
• Entered into agreement with Breton in early 2006 (Feb?) with a completion timeline of 15-18 months. Also understand that they have 10 yr exclusivity of Breton technology in India (needs validation), which assuming 2006 signing timeline would expire next year. From @sambath discussion, it seems to have already expired
• Commenced production in Apr’09
• Launched Quantra brand in Feb’10
It took them 4 yrs for significant ramp-up of revenues. Since US is their biggest market for Quantra (72%), the fortunes might have turned in line with change in US housing/commercial market. It may also be due to the timing of signing up distributors. @Mahescm your distributor scuttlebutt is very helpful. Could you find out when they started selling Quantra, so we can explain this story better. They have appointed Dekker in Netherlands earlier this year, so distribution is ramping up. On the negative side I did not find a mention of Quantra on Dekker website as claimed in the announcement of the agreement - I did some scuttlebutt at Raja Garden stone market in Delhi. Found that only about a few shops (maybe 5%) keep Quartz. Most of them were Spanish (GTX, Compac) while Asian Granito was also present. I was told of another manufacturer called Kalinga but didn’t find the product. These are all non-Breton, so as expected domestic retail market is not addressed by this product. The product sold from ~200-350 per sqft and Spanish ones were less expensive. As an aside, Granite was available from 85-550 per sqft and Italian marble was 220 onwards.
- @varadharajanr Your point regarding the raw material cost comparison between Caesarstone and PES. Caesarstone’s Cost of revenues was 57% of revenues for FY’14 while that for PES was 43%. It doesn’t seem to be 2-3x and I think the difference could be explained by the lower scale of PES, thus higher percentage of Other costs. Does that make sense?
- Regarding availability of financials of PES, they are available on MCA website till FY’13, had trouble finding FY’14. I have received FY’15 AR from Company but can’t upload here due to size. Reading consolidated and standalone financials, one can work out PES financials to a good extent but I still have some open points on loans which I’m working on. I can send the PES financials if somebody needs it.
- In order to figure out their Quarry capacity I looked up Andhra and Telangana govt sites. There is one mention of Pokarna having a Quartz & Feldspar mining license but it has been shown non-working. Interestingly they also feature in two cases of Environmental violations for Granite mines in Telangana. Telangana govt site does not provide a list of mining leases yet. I think this is a promising source of information on their Quarries. I’m thinking of using RTI to get hold of this information. I haven’t used RTI before so could somebody help with the RTI process.
- As per @sambath discussion with company, the granite processing capacity is 5 lsqmt, but their FY’10 AR mentioned 6.36 lsqm. Similarly, Quartz capacity from the discussion is 6 sqmt while the AR said 8.85 lsqmt. This does not tie up. @Sambath, could you follow-up on your previous conversation for a clarification
Concerns
1. Meka Yugandhar who is on board of Pokarna has been chargesheeted in Coal scam
2. Gautam Jain took more salary in FY’09 than permitted by Companies Act. The amount of 53 lakhs was not a small one to ignore
3. Sidharth Jain from the promoters left Pokarna in 2011 to start his own Granite trading company. This does not show well on the promoters
4. Capital allocation in Apparel business is a tragedy, calls to question promoter capital allocation skills. I think it was just a carryover from his Raymond distributor past.
5. Environmental violations in Pokarna mines
6. Unhedged forex exposure
7. 62.5 cr of contingent liability for legal undertaking of SEZ.
Disc: Invested
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