Unfortunately, neither genus or hpl provide the cost they are charging for smart meters or margins, I have only read the last 2-3 concalls at most so not sure if this was provided before or maybe I missed that. HPL did state in the recent concall that they don’t provide the number due to competitive reasons. We would probably need to do some approximations to get potential revenue and margins.

Overall, HPL and Genus have not more than 2 cr meters / year capacities (with expansions) and to get to 15 cr installations within 3-4 years, there is enough scope for Salzer to not underprice their product. Purely my gut feeling.

I don’t think any of them is accurate. I searched for a few names and couldn’t find any of them related to the company.

Neelesh Choukesy – PPFAS (I have invested in this for quite some. Never heard of a person called Neelesh)
Anil Talreja – Edelweiss (No such person existed or resigned)
Jaideep Goswami – AU Small Finance Bank (Same here).

I have a slightly unconventional thought process on this. Any activity aiming to make future predictions is speculation. In my line of work, I create mathematical models projecting how climate change might affect water resources over the next 50 to 100 years. So you could say I’m a full-on speculator. I guess you could call me an “investor” if you really wanted to, but it doesn’t quite capture what I do.

Very hard to answer this question. I did some work on previous agchem downcycles which I am sharing below, maybe it can add some value.

Analysis of downcycles (FY09, FY16) – 23.06.2023
Underlying logic is when FAO food price index goes down sharply, farmers use less pesticides. Let’s see this with data of Sharda Cropchem and PI Industries. I have excluded UPL as they have kept growing in downcycles by acquisition

In 2009, FAO food price index dropped by 22%. This impacted sales growth of PIIND and Sharda in FY10. FY10 sales growth for PIIND declined to 5% (vs 25% in FY09 & 31% in FY11). The effect was more stark on Sharda, whose FY10 sales declined by 26% (vs 25% growth in FY11). However, both companies had a very clear revival in growth rates in FY11 as food prices recovered very quickly.

The next major downcycle was in 2015 where FAO food price index dropped by 19%. The impact this time around was more on PIIND, whose revenue growth rate in FY16 declined to 8% (vs 22% in FY15 and 9% in FY17). Sales growth for PIIND only recovered in FY19. Sharda managed this downcycle better, but their FY16 sales growth declined to 15% (vs 34% in FY15 and 14% in FY17). Their sales growth recovered in FY18.

Current scenario

This time around, food prices peaked in May 2022 and have been showing decline for the last 1-year. It’s down by 21% already but hasn’t come down below 100, where in the past they have bottomed out. Given how high food prices became, recovery this time around can be prolonged.

Jan 2024 food prices are still 118 (very high by historical standards). So its hard to call it a bottom.

Avanti has struggled in past couple of years to pass on wheat and soya price increase because government regulated the final feed prices. Avanti nos are not really bad, look at other feed cos to see the carnage happening in this space (waterbase in losses). Avanti is a clear cut leader.
As explained in my agchem analysis above, we are coming out of a huge upcycle. I am personally still bullish on Punjab and have added shares in the last 30 days. I feel they have managed the whole downturn quite well, recovering their margins when most technical manufacturers are really struggling.

@vikas_sinha as seen in the investor presentation there has been a debt to equity conversion of 171Cr which led to the debt reducing from 325 Cr to 164 Cr. They used IPO proceeds to pay off 134 Cr and hence 30 Cr of gross debt remains. You may want to update your post.

Temp post for data point, will be deleted.