Few customers opting for a moratorium: VP Nandkumar, Manappuram Finance

Update on Indian Equity Market:

After two days of rally, Nifty closed the week 1.7% lower at 9,154. Among the sectoral indices, only PHARMA (1.4%) sector managed to close the day higher whereas all other sectors closed negatively with REALTY (-4.2%), FIN SERVICES (-3.8%) and PSU BANK (-3.7%) being the biggest losers. Within the index, 10 out of 50 stocks managed to close in green led by RELIANCE (4%), BRITANNIA (3.5%) and SUNPHARMA (1.7%) while BAJFINANCE (-8.7%), INFRATEL (-7.9%) and ZEEL (-7.5%) were the laggards

Edited excerpts of an interview with Mr VP Nandkumar, MD & CEO, Manappuram Finance published on CNBC TV18 on 23rd April 2020:

• Mr Nanadkumar said that 85% of the total Assets under Management (AUM) are related to gold loans. In this segment, very few customers have opted for the moratorium given by the company. The collections are happening at a normal rate. The company is able to do collections through different digital payment solutions.

• In the gold loan business, the company is expecting reasonable growth in the coming few quarters. The reason for this uptick in demand is due to limited avenues available for borrowing due to lockdown. 

• The company is expecting 10-15% growth in the loan book in the current year. The rise in the gold price is also one of the reasons why there will be demand for gold loans.

• The company has a loan portfolio of around Rs 50,000 mn to microfinance. This is one-third of the gold loans book. Few customers from the portfolio had asked for the moratorium and the company has allowed the moratorium period. 

• He mentioned that asset quality is expected to remain stable. With the increasing gold prices, it has become valuable to the customers. It has also led to a lower loan to value ratio. He expects this will help the company maintain its asset quality.

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

• The closing price of Manappuram Finance was Rs 107/- as of 24-April-2020. It traded at 1.6x/ 1.3x/ 1.1x the consensus Book Value estimate of Rs 66.5/ 83.2/ 101 for FY20E/ FY21E/ FY22E respectively.
• The consensus target price of Rs 182/- implies a PB multiple of 1.8x on the FY22E EPS estimate of Rs 101/- 

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