Inox Wind: How the Wind Power Auction Wins might translate into Revenues.

Inox Wind Ltd had won a 250 MW bid, which was the maximum permissible limit for a single entity, out of the 1000 MW Auction carried out by Central Govt. agency in Q1 of 2017. The price of electricity to be supplied is close to Rs.3.50 per unit (KWh). Inox Wind had also won an order for another 50 MW for supply of WTGs for an IPP (Independent Power Producer), who had also won a bid in that auction. Today Inox Wind has announced that it has again won a 250 MW bid in the second auction carried out by Central Govt agency in this week. The price of electricity to be supplied has been set at Rs.2.65 per unit.

These are surprisingly low bids for Wind Power, considering the fact that until about a year or so ago, the Wind Power tariffs were well above Rs.5 per unit and it was over Rs.8 per unit about 2 or 3 years ago. So the question that arises is that whether it will be profitable for these companies to supply electricity at such low prices and how long will it take to recover their Capital Investments.

Let's consider it from an IPP's point of view, which has won a bid for 250 MW at a price of Rs.2.65 per unit. The Capital Investment required for setting up a WTG is approximately Rs.6 crores per MW. Hence the Capital required for setting up 250 MW capacity will be about Rs.1500 crores. The Capital required for setting up Power evacuation infrastructure will be relatively much smaller and hence I am ignoring it. If all these 250 MW capacity WTGs remain operational 24 x 7 for all 365 days of the year, they will generate about 219 crore units of electricity every year. But the Wind flow is not that consistent everywhere throughout the day or year and hence we can expect about 35 to 40% efficiency overall. Hence the number of units generated will be approximately 80 to 85 crores per year. At the rate of Rs.2.65 per unit, it will translate into revenues of about Rs.220 crores per year. This is close to 15% of the CAPEX involved in this business. Since the electricity is being sold to Power Trading Corporation and not directly to any State Electricity Boards, the payments for the same are expected to be timely. Hence these IPPs should be able to afford Cost of Capital of about 8 to 9% per annum with 20 or 25 years repayment terms.

Inox Wind has already announced that it will be looking to sell majority stakes in the SPVs that will be used to commission the two projects, as it does not intend to remain a Wind Power generator, and focus on it's primary business of being manufacturer and supplier of WTGs. Considering the fact that this business is expected to be profitable even at such low prices, Inox Wind should be able to find buyers for the stakes in these SPVs. Going forward, we may see stabilisation in prices of electricity generated from Wind Turbines around these levels. Any further drop in prices for electricity will need higher efficiency from the WTGs or lower manufacturing costs for them.

Inox Wind's Q3 - Getting back on Growth track.

Inox Wind Ltd had disappointed investors during the first Half of this fiscal with a near 25% Y-o-Y drop in Total Income, about 35% drop in EBITDA and a much bigger fall in Net Profit numbers. In this backdrop, the company management's conservative guidance for a Total Income of between Rs.5000 to 5500 crores for FY'17, given at the start of the year, clearly looked under serious threat. To achieve even the lower end of the targeted number, Inox Wind would have needed to post a Y-o-Y growth of about 33% in Total Income during the second half of the fiscal. One thing that was riding in the company's favour was the good Order Book position as well as a healthy flow of fresh orders. The Q3 numbers announced by Inox Wind Ltd on 3rd February'17 have kept the hopes alive for the company being able to hit a Total Income figure of about Rs.5000 crores for FY'17.

Inox Wind Ltd. reported a healthy 22% Y-o-Y Growth in Total Income for Q3-FY'17. What is even more commendable is the fact that this growth came in despite the logistical & administrative impact of Demonetisation during the month of November'16 and also a few weeks of

Trailing-Twelve-Months Progress

December'16. The Q3 result certainly gives a boost to the confidence of the company's performance & growth prospects. Another positive factor being the healthy flow of orders during the quarter, amounting to about 330 MW. Inox Wind was able to report a sale of about 266 MW of WTGs during the quarter, despite delays due to Demonetisation. The company's management is fairly confident of achieving a sale of 500 to 600 MW during the Q4 of this fiscal, which should help take the company's Total Income figure to within the guided number for the fiscal. In all likelihood, Inox Wind's Q4 Total Income figure could be in excess of it's Q1+Q2+Q3 number this fiscal. The healthy Order Book of over 1300 MWs gives further confidence to this possibility. The question is whether Inox Wind will be able to manufacture & supply the requisite number of WTGs and other components. I am quite optimistic that the actual number shouldn't be far from my expectations.

Even on the EBITDA margin front, the jump in turnover has helped Inox Wind's EBITDA margin jump by over 200 bps during Q3 as compared to what it had managed during Q1 & Q2 of this fiscal. The EBITDA margin number is still about 100-125 bps lower than what Inox Wind had managed

during Q3 & Q4 of last fiscal, but that can be attributed to the higher fixed costs for the company this fiscal due to larger manufacturing capacity operational. The EBITDA margin can be expected to be higher in Q4 this fiscal than in Q3, on the back of big expected jump in turnover. Inox Wind's EBITDA for the first three quarters of this fiscal stands at about Rs.382 crores, nearly 16% lower than corresponding period of last fiscal. But I am expecting Inox Wind to finish the fiscal with an EBITDA number of between Rs.820 to 840 crores, which should be about 5% to 8% higher than that of last fiscal.

The higher EBITDA for this fiscal still may not help Inox Wind post a higher Net Profit figure as the increased Interest Outgo and higher Depreciation Provisioning will eat away all the gains & more. In the current fiscal so far, Inox Wind's Net Profit is about 32.5% lower than that during the same period last fiscal. Even though I am expecting Inox Wind's Q4-FY'17 Net Profit to be atleast 15% higher than it's Q4-FY'16 figure, the company will most likely fall about 5 to 7% short of it's FY'16 Net Profit number this fiscal. Inox Wind's expanded manufacturing capacity became operational just before the end of FY'16, which pushed it's Fixed Costs, Interest Payments and Depreciation Provisioning figures higher from the start of this fiscal. Inox Wind's T-T-M Interest Cost number has climbed to about 19% of it's EBITDA over the last 3 quarters. But I am expecting it to peak out at 20% or lower and not be any further threat to the company's Net Profit margins.

Valuation: At the current share price of about Rs.185/-, Inox Wind's Market Cap is just about 10 times it's T-T-M Net Profit and about 5 to 6 times it's T-T-M EBITDA. It is trading about 40% lower than it's IPO price, even though it has grown in size by over 60% in the last nearly 2 years. Inox Wind continues to be amongst the largest players in the business of providing Wind Power solutions with amongst the strongest Order Book positions in the Industry in India. After expanding it's manufacturing capacities for key components before the start of this fiscal, it is now in a position to focus on scaling up of capacity utilisation over the next 2 years or more, before needing any more Capital Expenditure towards expanding manufacturing capacities. Hence Inox Wind can utilise the Cash Profits from it's operations to bring down it's Net Debt levels during this period, which should help bring down it's Interest Cost in the next fiscal and improve it's Net Profit margins. With healthy Cash Profit margins & negligible CAPEX requirement for the next couple of years, Inox Wind could start paying some dividend to it's shareholders from this fiscal or the next. Finally, to summarise, Inox Wind continues to be one of the best Investment Options in the Renewable Energy space with a medium to long term view, on the back of low existing Valuations and healthy Growth Opportunities.

Suzlon Energy vs Inox Wind - Trailing-Twelve-Months comparison!!

Suzlon Energy Ltd.'s sale of Senvion AG got concluded in the last week of April'2015. Hence there was some impact of the German subsidiary on Suzlon's numbers for Q1-FY'16. From Q1-FY'16 onwards, it's now completed 4 full quarters of Suzlon's own performance. Hence now we can start comparing Suzlon's numbers with Inox Wind Ltd., which is a smaller & much younger player in the Wind Energy business in India. Frankly, I had never had a proper look of the numbers from Inox Wind Ltd until the day I was writing a post on Suzlon Energy about 3 months ago. (Click here for that post) After a quick glimpse of Inox Wind's numbers that day, I have studied the numbers better & tried to analyse the company's business performance properly. And I have become a fan of Inox Wind Ltd. I have been closely following the company's share price movement since then and have also included it in my portfolio with reasonably weightage.

Now let me present you the comparison of Trailing-Twelve-Months numbers of Suzlon Energy & Inox Wind:

The Financial Numbers presented here are for the 12-months period from July'15 to June'16. The Market Cap numbers are arrived at by using closing share prices of 20th Sept'16 alongwith the Equity Capital figures for June'16 result. While Inox Wind's Equity Capital is not expected to change any time soon, Suzlon's Equity Base could expand soon from the current level of 502 crore shares to potentially about 599 crore shares, as and when the remaining FCCBs also get converted into shares. Hence the effective fully-diluted Market Cap of Suzlon Energy is potentially nearly 18-20% higher than the number I have mentioned in the table alongside.

As we can see, Inox Wind's Total Income is just under 50% of Suzlon Energy's Total Income. How this percentage number moves in the coming quarters will tell us which one of the two is growing faster. Coming to the EBITDA numbers, Inox Wind's EBITDA is a whopping nearly 75% of Suzlon Energy's EBITDA number. This clearly means Inox Wind is currently enjoying very superior EBITDA margins when compared to Suzlon Energy. We can certainly give some space to Suzlon Energy here as it is still in the midst of a business revival & hence is expected to see a substantial improvement in it's EBITDA margins in the coming quarters. We can certainly expect to see the Inox-to-Suzlon EBITDA comparison percentage coming down to about 65% in the coming 2-3 quarters. I will certainly be disappointed with Suzlon's performance if this does not happen.

Coming to the Interest Cost comparison, it's a no-brainer. Inox Wind's Interest Cost is less than 10% of Suzlon Energy's Interest Cost. On one hand Inox Wind's Net Debt was very low until 2 or 3 quarters ago as the company had enough Equity Capital and Cash Profits to fund it's operations. The Net Debt has now risen to about Rs.1500-1600 crores over the last couple of quarters primarily due to huge capacity expansion undertaken & higher working capital requirements. On the other hand, Suzlon Energy continues to have some bit of Debt hangover from it's past. Even though the 12-months Interest Cost for Suzlon has already dropped by close to half, it still has more work to do in order to bring it down to reasonable levels. The company will need improved Cash Profits to take care of it's expansion requirements on one side as well as paring down it's debt on the other side. Taking the 12-months Interest Cost well below the Rs.1000 crores mark will remain a challenge for Suzlon Energy, atleast in the coming few quarters. Thanks to this Interest Cost factor, Inox Wind will continue to enjoy substantially superior Cash Profit & Net Profit margins in the coming few years.

Suzlon continues to be PBDT Negative currently, but is expected to be in the positive in the next 1 or 2 quarters. But Suzlon might take much longer time to come close to matching Inox Wind's PBDT numbers, maybe even 2 years. Coming to Market Cap comparison, Inox Wind's market value is just about 56% of Suzlon's (non-diluted) figure. This is despite the fact that Inox Wind is already posting healthy profits, while Suzlon continues to be Loss making. Higher Market Value being awarded to Suzlon then suggests that the market expects Suzlon's Financial performance numbers to improve substantially in the coming quarters. It will be interesting to see if this expectation turns out to be true or the market changes it's opinion in the coming months and we see a substantially stronger increase in market value of Inox Wind in comparison to that of Suzlon Energy. Let's wait & watch. My bet is on Inox Wind to get re-rated upwards in the coming months/quarters, while Suzlon continues to linger within a 10-20% range from current levels.

Inox Wind's Q1 Performance - Poor upfront numbers, but hopes of better future alive.

Amongst the four quarters of any financial year, the first quarter (Apr-Jun) is always the weakest quarter for Inox Wind Ltd in terms of Reported Revenues & Profits. The primary reason for this being the huge number of orders that get booked during the last quarter (Jan-Mar) of the previous financial year. A substantial portion of the orders Billed during Jan-Mar quarter generally get physically executed only in the following quarter or two. That is the main reason behind lower number of orders getting Billed during Q1 & Q2 of any financial year for a company like Inox Wind Ltd. The secondary reason could also be the fact that Investors await for fresh fiscal announcements related to Wind Power Tariffs by various State Governments, before placing fresh orders in the new fiscal year.

Inox Wind Ltd. reported a sharp 31% drop in Total Income and 80% drop in Net Profit for the Q1-FY'17. Is this something the Investors need to worry about?? I don't think it is. Remember that Inox Wind Ltd had Billed orders worth over Rs.1800 crores for around 400 MW of WTGs, during Q4-FY'16. At the same time Inox Wind received fresh orders for another 360 MW during that quarter to finish the year with a strong Order Book of around 1100 MW. Even though Order for 400 MW were Billed during Q4-FY'16, the physical EPC work for a substantial portion of those orders must have been executed during Q1-FY'17. The same in reflected in the quantity of Blades & Towers produced by the company during Q1-FY'17. As per Inox Wind's Investor Presentation, the company produced Blades for 198 MW and Towers for 148 MW, both of which are substantially higher than the same produced during Q1-FY'16. The company produced lower quantity of Nacelles & Hubs as it was sitting on substantial Inventory of the same. After this adjustment, the company claims that the Inventory mismatch between the quantity of Blades, Towers and Nacelles & Hubs has been reduced to a good extent.

Trailing-Twelve-Months charts

Even in terms of Order Inflows, Q1-FY'17 was pretty good for Inox Wind. The company received further Orders for 184 MW, which got added to it's March'16-end Order Book of 1104 MW. The company Billed orders for only 48 MW during Q1-FY'17, which was the main reason for lower Reported Total Income and Net Profit numbers. At June'16-end, Inox Wind is sitting on an Order Book for 1240 MW, which is to be executed over the next 12-15 months. We can safely expect the Total number of Orders Billed/Executed during the current fiscal to be higher than the approximate 800 MW done during FY'16. I am expecting Inox Wind to report a minimum growth of 15% over FY'16 numbers and this expectation could prove to be highly conservative by the end of the year. At the same time, the Management team of Inox Wind is under pressure from various Analyst/Investor Groups to curtail it's Net Working Capital requirement. The Management is already taking steps for the same and we could see more positive developments on this front in the coming quarters. The Interest Cost of about Rs.38 crores for Q1-FY'17 suggests that the Net Debt (including Working Capital Loans) for Inox Wind is comfortably under Rs.1500 crores, which according to me is Not an alarming number at all for a company which is growing at a handsome pace and posting T-T-M EBITDA of around Rs.700 crores or more.

Coming to Valuations, the share price of Inox Wind has continued to correct over the last month of so and is currently trading below the Rs.180 mark. At this price the company's Market Cap stands at less than Rs,4000 crores, which I think is peanuts valuation, unless something terrible is about to happen to the company's business prospects. I certainly don't think that's the case with Inox Wind. Just as Warren Buffet says: "Be Greedy in the market when everyone else is Scared". Currently everyone is running scared of Inox Wind's shares. I think it's time for genuine Investors to be Greedy.

[ Click here for Quarterly & T-T-M Results sheet of Inox Wind Ltd. ]

Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd - Strong Winds, Strong Growth & Equally Strong Rewards

I have been a big fan of Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd's (GFL) management since the last 6-7 years. The way they have used the Cash generated from sale of Carbon Credits, which they got for using eco-friendly technology in their Refrigerant Gas business. Over the years the price of Carbon Credits has keept fluctuating wildly, leading to wild swings in Revenue & Profit numbers for companies like GFL. Smart managements like that of  GFL have used that surplus capital earned from sale of Carbon credits & invested into other businesses which could offer a good balance of growth, stability, diversification & profitability.

Revenues & EBITDA are on Trailing-Twelve-Months basis

GFL is the promoter of INOX Multiplex chain, which has consistently expanded capacity & is amongst the Top-3 Multiplex companies in India. As of December'14, INOX multiplexes are contributing close to Rs.1000 crores to GFL's Topline on a Trailing-Twelve-Months basis. But the profitability of this business is not that strong at an EBITDA margin of just over 6%. With increasing scale, the profitability could increase, but only upto a certain extent. To further diversify it's revenues source, GFL invested in setting up Wind Power Generation Capacity. With the initial few Wind farms, GFL tested their operating performance & profitability. To set up a Wind Farm, the CAPEX is high at about Rs.6-7 crores per MW, but the Operating Costs are very low, resulting in high Profit Margins. Few years back GFL decided to hike their Wind Power generation capacity from just about 100 MW to 2000 MW spread over a few years. This huge expansion would have entailed Huge CAPEX too at about Rs.10,000 to 12,000 crores. To make it more competitive, GFL decided to tie-up with a global technology partner and assemble it's own Wind Turbines, which was expected to bring down the CAPEX by about 20-30%. GFL setup a separate subsidiary called INOX Wind about five years ago specifically for assembling the different components required for building a Wind Turbine. They were open to outside orders as well, but initially most of the orders were in-house to the extent of over 70% in the first couple of years. But when the Govt granted the accelerated Depreciation benefit again to Wind Farm investors, the orders from outside started flowing in. By March'13, in-house orders constituted about 40% of Revenues of Inox Wind, which dropped to 15% by March'14 and further down to 2% by December'14. This is a very good strategy to give higher priority to outside orders at a time when they are flowing in real strong.

Look at the charts above, T-T-M Revenues from the Wind Turbine business have jumped from about Rs.1000 crores at the end of March'13 to over Rs.2500 crores by December'14, with most of the jump happening in the last 2-3 quarters. On the profitability front too, EBITDA margins were about 8% at the end of March'14, but has sharply increased to about 13% at December'14. The increased scale has clearly benefited the margins of INOX Wind business. INOX Wind now contributes about 50% of GFL's Consolidated TTM Revenues and about 45% of Consolidated EBITDA. Over the last 1 year, the contribution from GFL's original Chemicals business to Consolidated Revenues has dropped from 33% to 25%, while EBITDA contribution has dropped from 35% to about 21%. GFL's Wind Power Generation business, which hasn't seen much expansion in the last year or so, contributes less than 4% to the company's consolidated Revenues, but it's contribution to consolidated EBITDA is at over 20%, thanks mainly to the high Operating Profit margins in that business. The INOX Multiplex business contributes about 19% of GFL's Revenues, but less than 10% of EBITDA, again mainly because of the low margins in that business.

Look at the Consolidated TTM charts above. The clear upswing in business performance has been handsomely rewarded by the stock market with GFL's share price rallying from under Rs.300 level in March'14 to over Rs.750 level currently. On the valuation front, GFL's share trades at about 28 times it's TTM EPS, but with strong growth, the 1-year forward P/E ratio is probably well under 20 times. The Promoter of GFL owns about 70% of the company and coupled with low Equity Capital, the total floating stock of this company is very limited. Another positive development is that GFL has filed a DRHP for an IPO of INOX Wind, which could happen anytime in the next 2-3 quarters. As and when that happens, the stock of GFL could rally further depending on the kind of valuations they get for INOX Wind and the quantity of shareholding they sell. Overall GFL is a good stock to have in one's portfolio if one wants exposure to 3 or 4 different businesses with a single stock. But remember that GFL's stock does have a tendency to remain in a narrow price range for long periods, mainly because of limited floating stock and very very low trading activity. The share price moves only when some large investor thinks that this share deserves some valuation re-rating.