No need for retrenching employees, call on pay cut will be taken soon: Keki Mistry, CEO of HDFC

Update on Indian equity market:

Indian markets opened on Wednesday higher but erased all the gains towards the end as Nifty closed 69 points lower at 9,196. Among the sectoral indices, six out of 11 indices closed in the red led by FIN SERVICES (-2.8%), BANK (-2.2) and PVT BANK (-2.1%) whereas FMCG (4.2%), REALTY (1.8%) and MEDIA (0.9%) were the highest gainers.  Within the index, KOTAKBANK (-5.7%), HEROMOTOCO (-4.7%) and BAJFINANCE (-4.4%) led the index lower while UPL (8.0%), HINDUNILVR (5.4%) and BRITANNIA (5.2%) closed the day higher.

Edited excerpts of an interview with Mr Keki Mistry, CEO, HDFC published on CNBC TV18 on 14^th April 2020:

• Sharing his views on the announcements made by PM Modi on 14^th April, Mr Mistry said that there will be calibrated reopening of the economy. Certain industries which are very critical and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy might be a part of this calibrated reopening starting from 20^th
• According to him, the critical thing at this point is to ensure that there is enough liquidity in the system.
• He made a request to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to provide funding to the National Housing Bank (NHB), which is 100% owned by the government. Through the NHB, the RBI can provide the funding to Housing Finance Companies and something similar could be done for Non-Banking Financial Companies.
• According to him, certain sectors of the economy like hospitality, hotels, airlines, real estate have been badly hurt by the crisis. They need some sort of a special stimulus.
• Commenting on the cost-cutting measures, he said that the salary cost is not a major expense for the company as about 1.5% of the total expenditure for HDFC is spent on salaries.
• The company currently has 3,500 employees and he believes that there will be no need to look at retrenching employees. Pay cuts are being studied on a day to day basis and the company will come out with something in the coming days.
• He said that retrenchment and pay cuts could be a problem in certain sectors. However, in the financial sector, retrenchment may not be a major concern.

Consensus Estimate: (Source: market screener, investing websites)

• The closing price of HDFC was Rs 1,594/- as of 15-April-2020. It traded at 3.2x/ 2.9x/ 2.7x the consensus Book Value estimate of Rs 506/ 544/ 598 for FY20E/ FY21E/ FY22E respectively.
• The consensus target price of Rs 2,594/- implies a PB multiple of 4.3x on the FY22E BV estimate of Rs 598/-