One thing I have learned from my more than 14 years into financial markets is that never follow a single valuation multiple to evaluate a company.....first look at the business, see if growth is there or is sustainable, look at the business model to check how important company is to its customers, see the margins it is working at and check if they are sustainable, check whether they are paper margins or are getting translated into actual cash, look at the future scenario from varied angles and check where company can go wrong.......like this way there are multiple parameters which form the right valuation for a company.
I will explain you practically why this happens.....valuation is a factor of demand and supply.....if more long term investors get attracted to a particular company then it's valuation will become far reacher as they see the valuation from financials at 4-5 years down the line and not now.....what company has to do is surpass the milestones expected from it to be surpassed and again 4-5 years down the line valuation will again reflect financials of next 4-5 years.....like this cycle will go on unless the company falters.....this is true for well managed, blue chip companies like Page, PI and of course should soon happen to Syngene too......
As far as my assessment goes, once contract manufacturing starts and stabilises as expected, I expect Syngene to trade at premium to PI and Divis on all valuation multiples be it p/e, EV/ebitda, EV/sales, etc.. The low free float of just 12.2 % should create a scarcity premium that's what I believe as there are not many businesses with clear growth visibility coupled with high margin of operation and equally high cash generation.
rgds.
Discl. - invested in Syngene