In-home beverage consumption up 25%; sales at pre-COVID levels- Varun Beverages

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In-home beverage consumption up 25%; sales at pre-COVID levels- Varun Beverages

Edited excerpts of an interview with Mr. Ravi Kant Jaipuria, Chairman, Varun Beverages with CNBC TV18 dated 5th October 2020:

Varun Beverages (VBL) is the second-largest franchisee (outside US) of carbonated soft drinks and non-carbonated beverages sold under trademarks owned by PepsiCo. It produces and distributes brands such as Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Seven-Up, Mirinda Orange, Mirinda Lemon, Mountain Dew, Seven-Up Nimbooz Masala Soda, Evervess Soda, Duke’s Soda, Sting, Tropicana, Seven-Up Nimbooz, Gatorade and Quaker Oat Milk as well as packaged drinking water under the brand Aquafina.

• Comments on Hotels, Food courts, Restaurants and Bars to operate in Maharashtra from 5th Oct, 2020 at 50% capacity: Maharashtra is an important state but not the biggest state sales wise for Varun Beverages. He further added that UP is the largest contributing state for Varun Beverages. Unlock in any area or region will be helpful for the company to increase the sales and he is happy to know that restaurants, movie theatres are opening up.
• The overall volume sales have reached pre-COVID levels since August, and the numbers for August and September are very close to the numbers logged during the same periods last year.
• When asked about the prospects for the month of October as the restaurants are opening up he stated that September has been better and he is happy with the performance and things are looking good going forward. Opening up of restaurants will definitely help increase the sales but in-home consumption is quite large and on the go consumption has started and they will be back to normal levels soon.
• The supply started in July-20, so July-20 was reasonably good although weaker than July-19 but since August Varun Beverages is doing well and going forward, he doesn’t see any reason why sales should fall or decline unless any major incidence or lockdown happens.
• Whatever fixed cost they could cut down during the lockdown, they have kept it down since then so fundamentally they will be in a good shape as the cost have gone down and volumes are back to normal. So, going forward things are looking pretty good and in shape.
• Unfortunately, they have lost the peak season i.e. April-May-Jun this year but as the go to market keeps on improving and unlock keeps happening things will be back to normal.
• In home beverage consumption has gone up by 25-30% after COVID and on the go consumption is also seeing recovery. If it reaches the normal level he sees huge growth coming in.
• When asked about the revenue contribution, he informed that restaurants and bars contribute less than 5%, in home consumption and on the go consumption are the main business for Varun Beverages.
• When asked whether they are facing any issues at the supply side he replied that they did not had any issue at the supply side and were able to maintain the supply. Production and Supply side was never a challenge for Varun Beverages.

Consensus Estimate: (Source: market screener website)

• The closing price of VBL was ₹ 689/- as of 06-Oct-2020. It traded at 76x/29x/21x the consensus EPS estimate of ₹ 9.2/24.3/33.1 per share for CY20E/CY21E/ CY22E respectively.
• The consensus target price of ₹ 804/- implies a PE multiple of 24x on CY22E EPS of ₹ 33.1/-

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