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Gujarat NRE - 3rd Quarter Results update

Gujarat NRE Coke has come out with sterling results for the third quarter. The topline has grown to Rs248 crores in Q3 2007 from Rs102 crores in Q2 2007. The net profit for the quarter is Rs49.90 crores which translates to an EPS of Rs1.45 (diluted) on a quarterly basis. The net profit margin has improved to 20.58% compared to 12.30% during the previous quarter.

There are very many fundamental changes happening in the company which I have earlier mentioned here. I am quoting below a snippet posted in Deepak Singh's blog "State of the market" on Gujarat NRE:
"Gujarat NRE Coke - A batch of foreign investors led by an Australian fund were seen buying shares of Gujarat NRE Coke in good numbers. According to these investors, floods in Australia, freezing weather in China and transport bottlenecks in Indonesia will stoke a sharp rise in the price of coal in other parts of Asia. JP Morgan recently raised its forecast for 2008 coking coal prices to $140 a tonne, a 42% jump from last year's agreed price of $98.38. Its previous estimate was $120 a tonne. It is in this light that foreign investors are accumulating shares of mining major Gujarat NRE Coke in good numbers...Economic Times"

With the projected rise in the coal prices and Gujarat NRE owning huge coal mines would stand to benefit. I continue to remain bullish on the stock.

Disclaimer: This is not an invitation to buy or sell shares. The views expressed are my personal opinion and please consult your financial planner before taking your decision. I own the shares of Gujarat NRE Coke.

Third quarter results update on my portfolio of stocks

I have written about Surya Pharmaceuticals before. You can read that here and here. The third quarter results for Surya Pharma has been declared and it is on track.

The topline is flat and the quarterly EPS is maintained around Rs8.27. There is an improvement on the operating margins by more than 120 basis points and by 50 basis points on the net profit level. The net profit is not reflected the higher operating margins because of higher depreciation and interest cost. The company has gone for expansion and I think it has not started generating revenues. We also need to look if there has been pricing pressures as well.

The trailing twelve months EPS is Rs29.10 and today it has closed at Rs115. The stock is currently quoting at PE of 3.95 and looks very attractive. I continue to hold the stock and I am planning to buy more around Rs100.

Disclaimer: Pls check independently before you buy or sell stocks. This is not an invitation to buy or sell stocks.

"In Xanadu, A Quest" by William Dalrymple

In Xanadu, A Quest is a travelogue written by William Dalrymple of his travel from Jerusalem to Xanadu in China. This is exactly the same route taken by Marco Polo some 1200 years ago when he travelled from Europe to Asia. William and his two lady companions (lucky guy!!) did this travel during their college days in Cambridge in 1986. I read this book only now!! His latest popular book on the Indian History is The Last Mughal.

Imagine travelling from Jerusalem to Xanadu, which is 12000 miles, and travelling through very diverse climatic conditions, with language barriers and cultural differences. It is not one of the most interesting of journeys for me but I admire the grit and determination shown by these young college students. They have to travel through various countries sometimes with valid visa and sometimes without. They travelled in all forms of transport from airplanes to motor cars to public buses to hitch-hiking in transport carriers.

Language barrier was one of the greatest difficulties these guys faced. William could not talk Urdu, Arabic or Chinese other than English and some smattering of these languages. Using very minimal knowledge of the local language, they have to fend for their food, accomodation, travel etc., and manages to well fed throughout the journey going by what he has written in the book!

The objective of this epic travel is not to start from point A and go to point B. Enroute he wants to see most of those places and buildings which has been mentioned in the original travelogue written by Marco Polo. William did manages to see many places and gives a very detailed account of the places he visited. These travellers I guess spend lot of time updating their log book at the end of the day inorder to write a travelogue latter!

Many a times in their entire journey, I recalls how he used his minimal local language skills to talk to the natives and convey the messages with regard to places, buildings, food and accomodation. By reading through the book, you will understand that most of the places in Afghanistan, Pakistan and China has not seen any visible signs of development for hundreds of years. The people still continue to do things the same way they have been doing for hundreds of years and ignorant of happenings across the world.

He undergoes very many hardships before he lands himself in Xanadu, his final destination in China. It turns out in the end that the Palace of Kubla Khan which he wanted to visit in Xanadu is non-existent and only the remnants could be seen.

After reading the book, I think:

1. Inspite of many hardships, the determination to proceed further is paramount to success. It applies to all activities in our life.
2. Sign language works as well as any other language. He manages to get whatever he wants enroute.
3. Keeping cool (atleast thats what I understand from the book) in face of adversity is very important.

One thing which I cant stop asking myself is : can this kind of journey would have been possible for a brown skinned person. He manages to travel through prohibited areas in China (closer to their nuclear testing facility) without valid permit, gets caught and manages to go scot-free!!

Can you imagine how much he would have used to complete the entire travel? William and his accomplices completed this journey through with GBP700 in hand. Believe me that is the amount he got from University of Cambridge as a grant!!

Fraud in Societe Generale Equity linked Index futures!

Societe Generale (SG) has reported yesterday one of the biggest dealer frauds in the history of Banking. The fraud, as reported, is committed by a trader in European Equity Index Futures based out of Paris. The amount of loss estimated is USD7.2 billions. When compared to other reported frauds by traders, this stands apart on account of losses reported by SG. SG has reported that the trader has been suspended and his managers' have also been sacked. You can read the press report here.

This fraud exposes the need and importance of risk management and control in the banking industry. Over the last 3 years all banks and FI's are reported record profits and probably it has induced the banks to be lethargic on their risk management. One wonders how such a big loss has been allowed to happen in an established global bank and how the trader has managed to hide losses for quite sometime.

It is also been reported that the trader has moved from the Middle Office to the trading floor and he is aware of the various checks and controls in the middle office and the back office and has devised ingenious ways to circumvent them and not get noticed. I expect that the worst thing to happen is to have some banking regulation which prohibits people moving from back/middle office to the trading desk. This would be a significant thing considering the fact that many aspiring youngsters take up roles within the operations and support group as they try to enter the lucrative trading world. Under normal circumstances, persons with experience in the operations or support role are considered favourably but with the present situation, it may become difficult.

In addition to the loss of USD7.2 billions on account of fraud, SG has also reported a write off of Euro2.1 billion on account of derivative transacations on Collateralised Debt Obligations.
The sub-prime meltdown has so far resulted in a write off of USD133 billion dollars by various banks and financial institutions and on its way it has dethroned four Chief Executive Officers of various banks and Financial Institutions. We still need to wait and watch for more write-offs in the coming quarters.

Tumultuous Indian stock markets!!

The last two days has seen record falls in the major Indian stock indices across the board. The NIFTY which was trading around 6000 levels on Thursday (Jan 17) went down and touched 4455 on Jan 22 (Tuesday), a fall of more than 1600 points on the NIFTY. The NIFTY has fallen around 29% from the record high of 6300 it touched sometime back.

The fall of the markets was justified on account of the poor economic condition in US, continuous fall in other major stock indices across the world, the higher crude oil price and huge write-down by financial institutions on account of sub-prime meltdown. But if you ask me did I expect this steep correction, honestly I have to admit, I didnt. All along whenever the world markets corrected, we were insulated and it was always claimed that Indian markets were de-coupled from the world markets. I was expecting a minor correction of 300-400 points on the NIFTY but the markets corrected four times more than that. A good lesson learnt!

When the markets opened on Tuesday, it was widely expected to fall following the weak Asian markets which opened before the Indian markets. The markets opened and got closed within few minutes following the 10% lower circuit for the index. Markets re-opened after 1 hour after the cooling off period and showed some signs of reversal but not could not sustain the momentum. The real recovery in the indices happened towards the close today more due to the short covering in the market rather than due to fresh buying, I guess. The sector which has got hit badly is Power and Real Estate from the data I collected. DLF, Parsvnath, Omaxe, Patel Engg, Peninsula Land, Ansal Housing are few of the Real Estate stocks which has corrected heavily.

There is absolute liquidity crunch for the retail investors in the market due to two major IPO's of Reliance Power and Future Capital Holdings. Both have collected huge chunks of money from the investing public and they are not due to be returned atleast for the next 15 days. Margin calls were triggered in the morning and investors were forced to sell their long term holdings to meet the margin requirements. Most the brokerage houses could not execute the orders because of the poor margin arrangements for individual broking houses with the exchange. I personally felt that with Geojit and Sharekhan broking houses. I called Geojit Securities to place an order but was turned down by the dealer to place the order citing the reason that there is no margin available. I explained to him that I want to place a cash market order and not in futures and options segment. But I was informed that they are only taking orders for squaring off existing positions and not for initiating fresh positions even in the cash market. Most of the investors would have faced a similar situation. Sorry state of affairs even for people who wanted to pick up shares in the discount sale!!

The volatility during the last two days were phenomenal and the prices moved very violently. The intraday movements were so huge it is highly unimaginable. For instance, the intraday movements in Bajaj Auto was Rs500, Patel Engg Rs100+, M&M Rs100+ just to name a few. The other thing is the difference between the bid and ask price was also very wide. This may be due to lack of volume as most of the investors could not enter because of the severe margin pressure on the brokerages.

I have listed few shares which have corrected by more than 40% in the last one week or so. These shares may correct further and nobody knows what is the real bottom at this stage. If you like a company and convinced about the fundamentals, this crash has really proved a boon for the investors to pick up these stocks at attractive prices compared to what they were 1 week ago.

RPL - 147
M&M - 600
ITC - 183
JK Lakshmi - 109
Microtech - 207
Petronet - 63
GHCL - 97
MTNL - 116
IDBI - 99
Guj Alkali - 152
Bata - 175
Guj NRE - 105
Surya Pharma - 88
Varun ship - 67
Power Grid - 99
Patel Eng - 725
Ind Hotels - 111
Hotel Leela - 41
Bongaigaon - 51

A word of caution, please check the fundamentals before you buy the scrip and be informed that I may already own some of the shares listed above.

Billion Beats - the new e-paper!!

Billion Beats is a new e-paper launched by none other than our former President Dr APJ Adbul Kalam. This is an English fortnightly and published and made available in his website www.abdulkalam.com. My friend, Krishna Srinivas referred me to this and immediately I browsed through the site.

Billion Beats has been started with the objective of bringing to light stories of India 's ''islands of success'' and to establish knowledge connectivity. It has various columns including a editorial by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam himself, Moon walk by Srinivas Laxman, . It also features a column titled "India of my dreams" by a school student every fortnight.

As of now it is a small e-paper of 3 pages and may become a bigger e-paper over a period of time. Three issues have been published so far and you can subscribe to the e-paper on the website www.abdulkalam.com.

Read the e-papers and post your comments!!

Kancheepuram plots - moving closer to a decision!!

I earlier wrote about the fact that I was looking for plots in and around Kancheepuram. I briefly talked about my interest in buying a piece of land in Kancheepuram here and also listed couple of reasons for the same.


I have visited Kancheepuram for atleast 3 times in the last one month to look at various options. I normally go along with my friends who are also interested in buying land in Kancheepuram. It also brings in different views/perspective to the whole exercise, which is very important.


When we checked about the plots available for sale, we found out that there are not many established players in the market. Only of couple of established players like BLB Real Estate and The Lands have their layouts. For instance, BLB's property is in Vaiyavoor (4 kms from Kanchipuram town) and the lay-out of The Lands is 5 kms away from the town very close to the national highway.


Our key understandings of the Kanchipuram real estate market are:
  • Major developments with regard to Kanchipuram happens on the National Higway and I consider it is better to have direct road access to NH from the lay-out.

  • The real estate in Kancheepuram is still virgin and the big players have not come out with lay-outs. The market is dominated by local real estate agents and housing societies.

  • There are no or very minimum lay-outs with DTCP approvals. Majority of the plots are panchayat approved plots.

  • High number of plots are coming for re-sale after the recent price surge on the Kanchipuram stretch.

  • The Kanchipuram town bus stand is going to be moved to the National Highway thereby easing the traffic congestion within the town. The proposed new bus-stand is on the National Highway near the Kanchipuram arch.

I would divide the residential plots available in and around Kanchipuram into 4 broad localities:

1. Enathur - Kanchipuram stretch - This is where the Sankara Deemed University is situated. There are 4 or 5 layouts which are bang opposite the university. The prices quoted for them is around Rs400 - Rs500/- per sq.ft and most of them are DTCP approved. The lay-outs are 1.5 - 2.00 Kms from the NH and 2.5 - 3.00 Kms from the Kancheepuram town.

2. Enathur - Vaiyavoor stretch- This is again a big property market with hundreds of plots available for sale. Almost all of them are panchayat approved plots with the price range between Rs100 - Rs200 per sq.ft. There is not much habitation around and also it is further away from NH, say almost 6 kms from NH. BLB has a DTCP approved layout in Vaiyavoor which is 4 kms from Kanchipuram town. Please be aware that Vaiyavoor is the earmarked place for garbage dumping of Kanchipuram municipality!!

3. Vellai Gate area - This is a popular landmark on the NH near Kanchipuram and it is good 2 kms away from the town's entry point. There are plots in this area as well selling between Rs100 - Rs300 per sq.ft.

4. Parandur - Karai stretch - All the above are on the left hand side of the NH if you go from Chennai to Kanchipuram and this Parandur - Karai villages are situated on the right hand side of the NH. Karai is the bigger village among the two, I guess and it is very closer to the NH. There is a big lake near Karai and there are plots available abutting the lake at a lower price.

The property I am interested to purchase is on the Parandur road on the opposite side to the Kanchipuram entry arch. The property is exactly 3 kms from the National Highway, panchayat approved and on a 30 ft tar road. The property is fully compounded and it was earlier a coconut farm which is being converted into residential plots. The project is marketed by Employee Welfare Society (Regd No.52). The size of the plot is 1320 sq. ft (22 ft X 60 ft). If you are interested you can contact Mr Gopi on 9381441442.

Why I have chosen this property compared to other sites I have seen?

1. The property is on a 30 ft metal road with bus service (though not very frequent).

2. The property is fully compounded which reduces considerably the risk of enroachment.

3. With the Kanchipuram town bus terminus moving to the NH, the distance to the bus terminus is only 3 kms, which I think is very positive.

4. It is near a water body (Lake) which will help sustain the ground water level.

Reliance Power IPO - What I have learnt?

Reliance Power IPO is the hot topic doing the rounds in the capital markets for variety of reasons. I have read many articles on the Reliance Power IPO both for and against it.
Reliance Power would be setting up Ultra Mega Power Plants and the first revenue flow would start from Mar 2010 only. Till then the company would be in the investment mode with no tangible revenues accruing to it.

Already the IPO has been over-subscribed by more than 10 times. That is, Reliance Power has garnered bids to the extent of more than 100,000 crores. Really staggering!! Probably, that is one of the reasons why we are seeing a sell-off in the Indian markets particularly, by the retail investors to apply to the Reliance IPO. NDTV Profit carried out an analysis of how much money the company would earn by parking the application money collected during the IPO. At 3.5% savings bank rate of interest, the Reliance Power is expected to earn anywhere between Rs1000 crores to Rs1500 crores as interest on the application money!! The grey market premium for Reliance Power is already around Rs400/- per share, which means that the listing can be expected around Rs850-900/-.

What is creating euphoria about the Reliance Power IPO?
  • Ambani's project execution capability is one of the corner-stones on which the entire IPO has been built. They have executed projects in record time and this time as well they may be able to do it. Real test for Anil Ambani as all the previous projects were driven by Reliance group and not by Anil Ambani alone.
  • I guess there is going to be a slew of announcements to follow post the Reliance Power listing or very close to the listing date. He may come up with stake sale announcements, acquisition of captive mines for Reliance Power fuel requirement, set up of equipment manufacturing company for power sector, merger of RNRL with Reliance Power and so on. Anil Ambani would like to keep the momentum going in the share markets for his company, as he may have plans of off-loading substantial stakes to bigger power manufacturers across the world. Already Anil Ambani has talked about setting up a power equipment manufacturing company.

Ambani's have been very popular with the shareholders because of their investor friendly activities. They have the capability of selling ideas in a big way and this time as well he has done it successfully.

Thanks to Reliance Power IPO, more and more analysis is being done on power sector and one stock which has come up for comparison is NTPC. If you take the comparison between the production capacities in 2010, Reliance Power would have 600 MW compared to 34,000 MW for NTPC. By the time, Reliance Power goes full stream in 2016, NTPC would have a generation capacity of close to 50,000 MW more than 100% of what Reliance Power would have.

By any standards, NTPC is a superior stock at current prices and valuations even after discounting for Reliance Power's management capability and vision. NTPC is one stock which I am going to buy at all possible opportunities.

Disclosure: I am not going to apply for Reliance Power IPO.

Nano - the latest sensation from Tata Motors!!

Tata Motors' "Nano" the latest sensation in the recent Auto Expo has made everybody turn and have a closer look at the car. Nano, as we all know is the cheapest car in the world and it satisfies all the latest safety and emission norms. All for less than USD3000. Too good to be true, but its true!! It is truly a great achievement for Tata Motors and makes us even more proud because the complete design and engineering is done by Indians, led by 37 year old Mr Girish Wagh and his 500 member technical team. To read more about him and the team which created Nano, click this link.

The car has been beautifully designed and very pleasant on the eyes. It closely resembles the new version of Zen Estilo but the comparison stops there. There have been radical changes to the way a car has been designed. The engine is on the rear side and the boot space is at the front. For your information, Tata Nano has a boot space to accomodate only one suitcase!! All possible measures have been adapted to cut the cost to the minimum. The car is 8% smaller than Maruti 800 but Tata claims it has 21% more space compared to M 800. I am not able to understand how it could have 21% more space. I leave it to the mathematical wizards and the engineering brains. Tata Nano is set to change the landscape of Indian Automobile industry in a big way as well it would change the Indian roads. Tata claims that the car would give you a mileage of 20 kms per litre of petrol. The car would be priced at Rs1.40 lakhs (on road) and would definitely be very attractive to the burgeoning Indian Middle-class to satisfy their dreams of having a car.

Okay, after all the good things about Nano lets look at the controversies surrounding it as well. Mamta Banerjee has made a political statement saying that Tatas should give 10 lakh Nano cars free because of the freebies they have got for the Singur plant. She claims that Tata's have been given land worth 1000 crores free of cost and as well as innumerable tax concessions from the Government. Turning little serious, lets look at the important questions:
  • Do we require a car like Nano considering the environmental impact?
  • Does our cities have the infrastructure to support these kind of smaller and cheaper cars?
  • How popular this car would be? Who are possible owners of this car?
Already our Indian city roads are completely choked and no way we will be able to find space for these kind of cars. There is already a big hue and cry about the increased pollution in cities which would result due to the large number of Nano cars expected on the roads. Dr Pachouri, the nobel laureate was very vocal in opposing these kind of experiments as it directly leads to higher pollution levels and global warming.

Though the car is highly efficient in terms of mileage, but just compare it to the motorcycles. An average motorcycle gives you a mileage of 45 kms per litre of petrol whereas Nano offers 20 kms under standard testing conditions. Tata is expecting the motorcycle wallahs to upgrade to Nano. They definitely need to spend a lot more on fuel. Rajiv Bajaj of Bajaj Auto, who incidentally showcased his compact car in the Auto expo, believes that the running costs plays a very crucial role in the purchase decisions of a car. Will the motorcycle wallahs be ready to spend that extra amount of money. I doubt it!

One way of answering all the questions related to pollution, environmental impact, traffic congestion is to market the cars exclusively in the rural, non-urban centres and export it to countries where there is a need for fuel efficient cars. It will be definitely be a popular choice in rural areas and also help to provide our rural population the advantages of urban India. It would also be a huge hit with the western countries where there is a demand for cars with high fuel efficiency.

Do you agree with my suggestion? Please post your comments on my novel idea.

Poll Results - FM Radio Chennai

In the recently concluded poll on FM Radio, Radio Mirchi was the clear winner with 66% of the votes polled. Radio One and Suriyan FM each got 16% of the votes polled.

Hats off to Radio Mirchi!! Keep going!!

More polls to come.

Vandalur Zoo - A must see place for children!!

Being in Chennai for many years now, gives me a kind of complacence in exploring places closer to the city. One such place I visited couple of weeks back, breaking my complacence is Vandalur Zoo.

Aringar Anna Zoological Park, Vandalur is popularly known as Vandalur Zoo. It is run and maintained by the Tamilnadu Government with wide variety of animals. It is situated on the GST Road before Urapakkam, may be 15 kms from Tambaram. It is spread over a sprawling area of more than 1000 acres of reserve forests. Zoo boasts of wide variety of wild animals, birds and reptiles in well maintained enclosures.

The zoo has a battery operated car to take you to the various animal enclosures as well as offers a Lion Safari. Though the Lion Safari offered by the Zoo does give you a semblance of a safari when you start but actually it is not. The driver of the van knows exactly where the Lions would be in the forest and take you directly there. The Lions roam around freely in the forest and the driver parks the van very closely for you to see the Lion.

The animals are well fed and the enclosures are well maintained. The watch and ward staff cleans up the enclosures as well the zoo very regularly. You can either choose to walk the entire zoo or take the battery operated car. I suggest if you have young children to take the battery operated car. It saves you lot of time and energy. The charges are very nominal right from entrance fees to lion safari to battery operated cars. The battery operated car drivers tries to make some quick money by taking along passengers without valid tickets!!

Overall it is an enjoyable day out in the open rather than sitting in front of the Television. The children would love to see the different kind of animals, snakes and birds.

Tips if you are planning to visit Vandalur Zoo:

1. People who are travelling from the western part of the city (like Ambattur, Anna Nagar, Vadapalani - Porur, Mogappair) can take the Maduravoyal - Tambaram bye-pass toll road. This road will help you to bye-pass the city traffic and helps you to reach Perungulathur closer to Vandalur in no time.
2. The weekly holiday is Tuesday. This Pongal day may be an exception, I guess.
3. Start early in the morning. We started around 8.15 AM and reached there by 9.15 AM and had plenty of time to look around.
4. If you intend to take the battery operated car, on entering the zoo find out where is the booking counter. There is an advance booking mechanism in place for the battery operated cars and Lion Safari. You need to book it in advance else you would not seats, particularly on weekends.
5. There is a Tamilnadu Tourism Development Corporation hotel inside, but the food is not of great quality. You have one hotel by name Hotel Sangeetha just opposite to the zoo on the GST Road.
6. If you are planning to carry light snacks, please avoid carrying it in very thin plastic bags/covers. Plastic covers are banned inside the zoo. Better way to carry biscuits or other food stuff in a air-tight container rather than in plastic bags. Otherwise, you have to undergo the ordeal of transferring your eatables in plastic bags to hand-rolled paper covers at the entrance.

Who is going to be the biggest investor in the Indian Stock Markets?

We all immediately come up with the answer saying, it is FII (Foreign Institutional Investors). It is neither FII's or the Domestic Mutual Funds. The answer is: Indian Insurance companies are going to be the biggest investors in the Indian equity markets. It is hard to believe but true. Look at the facts below:

The major Indian Insurance companies like LIC, ICICI Prudential and Bajaj Allianz have sizeable investments in the Indian equity markets. Business Standard reported yesterday that LIC of India has plan to invest close to Rs100,000 crore (USD25 Billion) in 2008. ICICI Prudential manages investments close to Rs28,000 crores (USD7 Billion) and Bajaj Allianz has equity exposure close to Rs7000 crores (USD1.75 Billion). Compare this to the total FII inflows of USD18 Billion in 2007. Insurance companies get bulk of their inflows during the first 3 calendar months in India because tax payers rush to invest in tax saving insurance products. This year they expect to continue in the same way.

It is for real that domestic money is entering the Indian Equity markets in a big way. As more and more people start buying insurance products linked to equities (like ULIP's), the Insurance companies would continue to be the biggest investor in the Indian equities market. Insurance companies typically buy when there are huge falls and this has helped the Indian equity markets to recover from all the lows consistently during the last couple of years. With the Government allowing Trusts and Provident Fund to invest in equity markets, more and more domestic money is entering the Indian Equity markets.

What does it signify for ordinary investors like me?
1. Continued bull run - Till such time the Indian insurance companies are allowed to invest in equities outside India, they would be focussing only on the Indian markets which may lead to continued bull run on the bourses. Sooner than expected, Government may allow Insurance companies to invest in equities outside India to offset the bulging Foreign Exchange reserves, I guess.
2. More FII inflows - With the huge domestic money chasing stocks, more FII's would get attracted to the Indian market and it will accentuate the bull run with further inflows from outside the country.
3. Quality Mid-cap and Small-cap stocks would continue to be in demand.

I think the bull run in the Indian Equity markets would continue for few more years unless there are major issues derailing the Indian economy.

Distelleries are good bets against recession!!

Drinking has become a regular habit among Indians and socially more acceptable these days. Recently I read in one of the newspapers that in the month of December alone, the sales of liqour through TN Government retail outfit, TASMAC was a whopping Rs220 crores!! Out of which, more than 60 crores worth of liqour was bought by consumers(!) during the last week of December.

Considering the above fact, distellery stocks look attractive if there is recession or not. Already distellery stocks has caught the attention of investors and have appreciated well in the last few months. Added on to that is the Government's drive to to go for Ethanol-mixed petrol in a big way and power production by many of the distelleries is adding more stability to the earnings. As an industry, Distelleries and breweries looks interesting.

Few of the stocks worth looking at are:
1. Empee Distelleries - They are one of the authorised vendors for TASMAC in Tamilnadu and also has presence in all the four southern states. Not only a distellery but also has interests in Real Estate. The company owns huge tract of land near Poonamallee on the outskirts of Chennai, which is on the way to the industrial corridor of Sriperumbudur. They have major plans for developing townships and as per one analyst estimate real estate activities would bring in more than Rs200 crores revenue to the company in the next 3-4 years.

2. Pioneer Distelleries - Already a research report has been published by HDFC Securities in the last week of December. They are going on massive capacity expansion (nothing but natural!!) and co-generation of power.

Two other stocks worth investigating is GM Breweries and Balaji Distelleries.

Review of Tamil Film "Kalloori"

Recently I saw the Tamil film Kalloori directed by Balaji Sakthivel and produced by Director Shankar's S Pictures. Balaji Sakthivel's last film Kadhal was a runaway success in 2005/06. Based on his last film there are lot of expectations on Kalloori and Balaji has not let you down. Do you know Balaji's first film is Samurai starring Vikram which bombed at the box office.

Kaloori is a story of college students in a small town and the emotions they undergo with friendship and love. All lead characters in the film are played by newcomers except for the female lead, Tamnaa (who has acted in few other movies and also comes in Avitaa masala ad - see how much of information I have collected for you!!).

The hero of the story, Muthu (played by Akhil, a newcomer) an aspiring athlete from a small town. The female lead is Tamanaa . The heroine lands up in the small town due to her personal circumstances to do her graduation after completing her schooling from Bangalore. You can imagine the cultural shock a student would expect moving from a city like Bangalore to a non-descript town in Tamilnadu. Tamnaa comes out wonderfully well as an actor in this film.

Overcoming her initial hesitation to join forces with her classmates she establishes herself as an integral part of the group. Naturally but slowly (literally) she gets attracted to Muthu. The emotions both of them undergo, hesitation in expressing their love to each other thinking that the friendship would be spoiled not only among themselves but of the group of friends as well. The situations conceived by the Director are very natural and close to the real life. Refreshing change from the cliched cinematic love, dream song sequences. All the actors have done a commendable job and the director, Balaji Sakthivel should get the credit for bringing the best out of these bunch of newcomers.

The film also shows how the rural students struggle to come to college inspite of domestic troubles and financial crunch. The film is very emotional and atleast on 2 occasions I could not control myself from crying (though not loudly). The climax is real-life incident which has been finely interwined with the story by the Director.

The film has got mixed reviews varying from a well-made picture to a picture which is very slow. I dont care too much about the slowness of the movie because it makes you identify and relate to each of the characters very well. I liked the film for the way it has been presented - very real with emotions, situations and locations. The locations were very apt and having done my college in a town I often could not stop myself from comparing it to my college days.

A film worth watching!! Well done, Balaji Sakthivel!!

The Times of India Chennai edition to be launched soon!!

It has been a week of breaking news from me, if you think it is!!

This time, Times of India is going to launch its Chennai edition very soon. They have started giving out pamphlets in commercial and office complexes. As part of their innaugural offer, one year subscription costs you Rs299/- and comes with a free gift of stainless steel flask. The 6 months subscription costs you Rs170/- with a free gift of travel bag.

For die-hard Times of India fans and for people who have come down to Chennai from other parts of India, it would be a nice new year gift. Times of India, as many of us know, is the largest selling newspaper with sales of 3.1 million copies everyday. This is 100,000 more than the no.2 paper, Sun of UK.

I personally look forward to TOI very eagerly as I am a regular reader of The Hindu for many many years now. I am curious to know how different TOI is different from The Hindu.

Lets welcome Times of India to Chennai!!

DLF launches GARDEN CITY on OMR in Chennai!!


Pls click on the image to enlarge.

The much awaited DLF Homes have come to Chennai. DLF has recently launched the Garden City on OMR at an attractive price point of Rs2800/- per sq ft. I learn that ICICI Home Search is doing the pre-launch advertising. The Garden City is spread across 58.5 acres and I guess there would be some 3000 apartments in the township. The township provides lot of amenities like Hospital, Clubhouse, School (Padma Seshadri School) etc., If you read through the pre-launch offer, there are no approved plans yet but it seems already 400 flats have been blocked by prospective buyers. It has made a very good opening and lets see how this pans out in the weeks to come.

I think DLF wants to enter the Chennai market and hence offering a lower price. It also needs to build some kind of brand awareness, though not to a very great extent after their IPO. we need to wait and see what the other players who already has projects lined up in that OMR stretch does with the pricing.

With this kind of aggressive pricing by DLF, will it have a cascading effect on the overall real estate prices in Chennai? What do you say?

The entire project brief is given below. I have also attached the route map.

DLF is about to launch an integrated township GARDEN CITY on OMR in Chennai. The project will have luxury apartments - 2 / 3 BHK / school / hospital / mini mall / guest rooms / 125000 SFT Clubhouse with indoor and outdoor games facility - among many more luxury amenities.
DLF group, the leading real estate developer in India, with over 224 mn sq ft of existing development and 738 mn sq ft of planned project.

The group which has set standards in real-estate industry with mega-township projects like 3000 acres DLF city. After NCR the developer has entered other markets in the country with successful launches in Kochi and Kolkata. The same expertise and technical finesse is now being bought in Chennai.

Project details:
  • Total land extent of 58.5 acres.

  • 32 blocks with Stilt+19 floors, Basement and surface car parking.

  • 4-6 flats per floor.

  • 4 apartment types
    Type I ( 2 bedroom 2 toilet ; area around 1200 sft )
    Type II (3 bedroom 2 toilet ; area around 1480 sft ),
    Type III (3 Bedroom 3 Toilet ; area around 1680 sft )
    Type IV ( 3 bedroom 3 toilet with servant quarter ;area around 1980 sft )

  • Each block will have 3 lifts including 1 with stretcher duty

Project Location: The project is tucked away in neat corner of Semancheree, on OMR. Behind Sathyabhama University. Convenient to the entire IT destinations TIDEL PARK / SIPCOT IT PARK Siruseri / ASCENDAS / Infosys / Wipro / TCS / Cognizant etc.

Amenities:

  • The project will have a school by the Padmaseshadri institutions- who run some of the finest schools in Chennai.

  • A Mini mall with department store, washing facility.

  • A health care centre run by Fortis group. It will also feature a ten bed mini hospitals for medical emergencies with ambulance facility.

  • A top end clubhouse of 125000 sft ( largest in South India ) with all modern facilities. It will feature 75 room guest house ( 4-5 star category ).

  • Among the facilities the most notable is the availability of trained servants / cooks / drivers for household.

  • It will also have tenant service by DLF as per client choice.

Completion: The project completion will be 24-30 months from launch. The booking amount will be 15% of total property cost.
Price: The expected launch price for Phase 1 ( first 700 flats ) is around 2800-3000/sft. A premium of Rs. 100/sft will be applicable for flats facing landscaping. Floor rise of Rs. 30/sft will be applicable from 4th floor onwards. This pricing is nearly Rs. 700- Rs. 1000/sft less compared to other similar projects on OMR. Pl refer OMR project eye attached. Approx 2bhk will start Rs. 35L onwards and 3BHK will start Rs. 45L onwards.
Booking procedure: You need to pay Rs. 500000/- ( RS. 5 lacs ) in favour of DLF SOUTHERN HOMES PVT. LTD. Please indicate the flat area / premium or non premium pacing / floor range so that a tentative booking can be done in this soft launch scheme. The exact unit can be freexed once the plans are available ( around Jan 1st week ).

Interesting comment on Channel Nine - Sydney Test!

I got forwarded the following comment which has been posted in Channel Nine website, supposedly by an Australian. This clearly describes the major events during the Sydney Test.

1. Aus was was 6-134. Symonds was given 4 lives, he went onto make 150.Give those lives to Sachin and he would hit 300!
2. Ponting was out on 15, and he went onto make 55. When he was given out wrongly on 55, he was furious and slammed his bat going into the dressing room. 1 wrong decision(when he was out on 15 already!!) and look how he reacted. How do you think the Indians feel with 13 wrong decisions.
3. Symonds was out on Zero on Kumble's hatrick ball in the 2nd innings, he went onto make 61.
4. Hussey was also out when he nicked the ball, another repreive and he made 145.
5.Jaffer was given out on no-balls!
6. 2 of Indias best batsmen on day 5 were given out disgracefully. Why should Clarke be trusted to rule on apotentially match-turning catch when he stayed at the crease on afteredging a ball? Ponting's intentions can be seen where he claims to catch aball off Dhoni that clearly fell on the ground.

And people think Aussies deserve to win?! Absolutely disgusting!

Thanks Sridhar for forwarding this. Also please read the comments section on the new rules for any cricket team's tour of Austalia!!!

Result - Real Estate Poll

There were 10 votes to the poll on Real Estate.

The scores are as under:

Chingelput and beyond - 3 votes
Kancheepuram and beyond - 3 votes
Chingelput to Kancheepuram - 3 votes
Tirunindravur to Periapalayam - 1 votes

This is a fractured verdict to the poll. I guess each of the areas has its own advantages. If there are other areas which are worth looking at please post it here.

Thanks to all who participated in the poll. Gear up, next one is coming up on FM Radio.

News Flash - India suspend Australia tour pending appeal!

A very bold decision has been taken by BCCI in suspending the Indian Cricket Team tour of Australia pending appeal on Harbhajan's ban for 3 tests on account of racial abuse. You can read the news flash here.

I think the BCCI has done a right thing after the acrimonious second test in Sydney. The test was marred by dubious umpiring decisions, Australians unsportmanship behaviour in number of instances, Ricky Ponting's outburst in the post-match press conference and finally the racial abuse accusation against Harbhajan. Kumble was forthright in mentioning that only one team (India) played the test in true spirit. Very rightly said!!

Australians introduced the concept of sledging on the field and defended it saying that they play the game the hard way. But yesterday, Australians have gone to the match referee crying foul of the purported remarks made by Harbhajan against Andrew Symmonds. I heard somebody telling me yesterday that Australians were never challenged in the past on their sledging remarks and now when they are challenged they have been completely exposed of their inability to face it. You cant keep winning all the time. World is round and not flat!!

This link will show you all the goof-ups made in the thrid test by the umpires.

FM Radio Stations in Chennai - A great entertainmnet!!

I am a regular FM Radio listener for the last couple of years are so. It is a joy to listen to your favourite film music and drive, isnt? I invariably switch on the Radio the moment I get into my car. I dont carry any CD's, so FM Radio is the only entertainment in the car. You have a wide variety of FM radio stations in Chennai. As per my last count, there are atleast 10 FM Radio stations including the Government run Rainbow FM. Out of the lot, the following stations are frequently heard by me: Radio Mirchi, Radio One, Hello FM, Big FM, Aaha 91.90 FM and Suriyan FM. I typically listen to FM Radio between 11.00 AM to 1.00 PM in the afternoon and between 8.00 PM to 11.00 PM in the night. This is the time I drive to office or drive back home. So, there may some positive or negative biases towards the programs aired between these times.

FM radio mainly plays film music throughout the day. They keep belting out popular film music non-stop only to be intervened by the loose-mouthed Radio Jockeys. For the listeners, the blessing is that they have choice. The creative side is not very important since there are severe restrictions on what FM Radio's can play. Recently, the Federation of FM Radio owners approached the Government to allow them to offer "News" and news-based programmes. But it was rejected by the Government saying that considering the number of FM Radio stations across the country, it is impossible to monitor the news based programmes.

Talking about the creative side of programming, I think the FM Radio stations are no different from one another. Within the available leeway, I think few of the radio stations are doing really well. I guess the differentiator between them is the quality of discussion the Radio Jockey (RJ) can engage with the caller. The voice quality and slang used is also very important for the listeners to get connected. I have noticed that Radio Mirchi and Radio One has the best RJ's considering the voice quality, discussion topics and the presentation style. I think they work really hard to come up with themes which would interest people and make them call or SMS their views. Similar to writing blogs. I have to really think to write!! (Believe me, I too think at times!!) I like "Mokka Mohan" and "Mirchi cares" messages of Radio Mirchi, "Deal day" and "Heart to Heart" programs of Radio One the most.

Revenue models for the radio stations are the advertisement revenue and the revenue from the SMS sent by the listeners. The telecom companies normally share their SMS revenue with these radio stations. There was talk some time back about the producer of "Kaun Banega Crorepati" literally making crores only through revenue sharing with telecom companies on the SMS's sent. For those who are interested, Entertainment Network India Ltd., owns Radio Mirchi and Mid-day Multimedia owns Radio one, both the parent companies are listed on the bourses.

Almost all stations employ the strategy of hosting "Call and play" programmes with attractive prizes to the listeners. Noticeable among them is the general knowledge quiz which comes up in Aaha 91.90 FM. This is definitely a positive attempt being made compared to routine cinema based quizzes. One funny call and play programme is "Palanguzhi" which comes between 11.00 AM to 1.00 PM on Hello FM.

There are many popular RJ's in all these channels. RJ Suchitra, I guess, is the most popular among the lot. RJ's Deva, Shiva (Chennai 600028 fame), Anjana, Mamati Chari, Deena (who did a world record of being online for 92 hours or so), "Heart to Heart" Gautam of Radio One, Vel Kannadasan and "Yazh" Prabhakaran of Suriyan FM are quite popular as well. Of all, I like RJ Deva of Radio Mirchi and RJ Shiva for their presentation style.

The most irritating program to me is "Chinna Thambi Periya Thambi" in Suriyan FM between 9.00 AM and 11.00 AM in the morning.

Which is your favourite FM Radio Channel?

Mini contracts on NIFTY and SENSEX!!

Both NSE and BSE have introduced mini-contracts on their primary index, namely, NIFTY and SENSEX.

What are these mini-contracts?

As I wrote sometime back, Futures and Options contract size was determined with Rs2 lacs as the base amount for determining the contract size. Over a period of time with increase in the prices, the contract sizes of many F&Oable contracts have gone up way beyond Rs2 lacs. NIFTY with a lot size of 50, will have a contract size of Rs3.05 lacs (50 X 6100). The exchanges thought it would be a good idea to introduce a mini-contract so that margin requirements does not become a problem for small retail investors.

The mini-contracts of NSE is 20 shares instead of 50 shares for the regular NIFTY contract. The margin amount for Mini-NIFTY should be arround 13,700/- compared to Rs34,000/- for the regular NIFTY contracts. As mentioned by the exchanges, with the introduction of the mini-contracts, there will be an opportunity for retail investors to hedge their portfolio better.

I dont think people who trade on NIFTY are doing it for any hedging purposes. Atleast, 90% of the retail crowd is buying or selling NIFTY purely as a speculative bet on the market rather than as a hedging tool. With the introduction of the Mini-contracts, it would accentuate the retail participation in the futures market by enticing them with low initial margins. Exchanges and brokers would be highly benefited with the introduction of the mini contracts more than the retail investors!!

What do you say?

Happy New Year 2008!!!

Wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2008!!

Making new year resolutions is very common. This year I have made the following resolutions:

1. Read more and write more.

2. Reduce the time spent in front of television and watching stock tickers.

3. Learn to be patient - on the road, at home and office.

Please share with me your New Year resolutions!!!