I personally try to estimate the potential return from that point on, and the risk-reward profile of continuing to stay invested.
For instance, there is a niche tech company with market cap at 7660 crores and topline of 254 crores and PAT of 109 crores. EBIDTA is over 40%. They have the ambition of reaching topline of 1000 crores over the next 5 years. The street believes the earning potential of this company, and thus it is trading at PE of over 70.
Five years down the line, let us assume a blue skies scenario where they have reached their target of 1000 crore top line and have a bottom line of 400 crores. It is reasonable to assume that the PE won’t expand further. If they continue to get the same valuation, they will 4x in 5 years. But valuations are based on future returns, not past. I think it is also safe to assume that the growth will slow down a little. When that happens, the PE will contract. Even if we assume a PE of 50 (which is still high for tech companies) returns are around 2.5x, which is about a 20% CAGR. So blue skies scenario return is 20% CAGR. But the risk in such an investment is much higher, in my opinion. There is a good chance that they may have a few bad quarters along the way. The correction in such a scenario will be severe. That’s not a favourable risk-reward ratio in my opinion. Hence if I owned it, I would probably sell.
Like I said, it is not possible to get it right all the time. There’s a good chance I’ll miss a multibagger because I underestimated earning potential. But for me, this sort of sell decision is about risk management. I feel uncomfortable owning companies that are trading at 2 or 3 times the average sector valuation.
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