KNR Constructions - Road laid for a sustainable drive - Angel Broking

Recent order inflows provide revenue growth visibility: KNR Constructions (KNR) is a specialist Roads & Highways EPC player. Over the last 4 months, KNR has reported Rs. 2,591cr of order wins (excludes Rs. 555cr of Chittagong order win), which is significantly higher than Rs. 950cr of order inflows in FY2015. Management has guided for another Rs. 750cr of order wins for remaining part of FY2016E. These order wins from the road vertical, take the 1QFY2016 unexecuted order book to Rs. 3,356cr. This would result in order book / last twelve month (LTM) sales ratio at 1QFY2016 to be at 3.8x, which is higher than order book / LTM ratio of 1.2x at 4QFY2015-end. With award momentum in road vertical to continue, we expect KNR to report 5.4x growth in its order book to Rs. 5,450cr by FY2017E. Taking into account its past execution track record and average execution cycle of 24-36 months, we expect KNR to report strong top-line growth over FY2015-17E.

New orders won amidst low competition: KNR has impressed us by prudently selecting projects, mainly in southern India, where it has strong foothold. Notably, recent order wins by KNR have come amidst low competition (2-3 bidders for each project), when compared to higher competition witnessed across other NHAI bids (5 to 8 bidders for each project). Recent order wins have been entirely from southern India (except the M.P. order which was won in Jul-2015), where KNR has aggregate mines as well as majority of its idly lying construction equipments. This in our view would enable KNR to attain synergy in its operations and continue to post higher EBITDA margins.

Comfortable Balance Sheet: KNR is one of the few Road EPC players with low D/E ratio of 0.2x (FY2015), whereas peers are having D/E ratio of over 1.0x.

Valuation: Improved order book outlook, strong earnings growth potential, and comfortable Balance Sheet, strengthen our view that KNR would continue to trade at rich valuations. Announcement of recent order wins, have supported the KNR's stock price run up, which is up 30% in last 3 months. On valuing the standalone entity at 14.0x our FY2017E EPS of Rs. 37, and adding up free cash flow to equity shareholders value for its Kerala based BOT project, we arrive at FY2017E sumof-the-parts (SoTP) based price target of Rs. 582/share, implying that the KNR stock is close to its fair value. We initiate coverage on KNR Constructions with a Neutral rating, given that all the positives have been captured in the stock price.

Shares of KNR CONSTRUCTIONS LTD. was last trading in BSE at Rs.590.25 as compared to the previous close of Rs. 593.25. The total number of shares traded during the day was 4179 in over 307 trades.

The stock hit an intraday high of Rs. 596.5 and intraday low of 575. The net turnover during the day was Rs. 2448142.

Source : Equity Bulls

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