Vishal Retail Report by Religare

Religare Securities recommends a ‘buy’ on Vishal Retail with a potential appreciation of 45 per cent.

Vishal Retail is one of the fastest growing retail companies, having opened 70 stores in 49 cities over past five years. The company rolled out 1.3 million square feet of retail space at the end of 2006-07 and plans to add another 5 million square feet over next three years. Of this, it aims to add 1.1 million square feet in 2007-08 and already tied up with real estate developers for 0.8-0.9 million square feet.

Religare expects the new rollouts and steady growth in old stores to enable Vishal to witness 77 per cent revenue CAGR to Rs 3,320 crore over FY07-FY10.

The brokerage has undertaken a comparative valuation of Vishal Retail with Pantaloon Retail and Shoppers’ Stop. Although the comparison is not on a like-to-like basis, Religare sees common ground in the growth potential for all these companies.

India’s $300 billion retail sector is at a point of inflexion and is estimated to grow at CAGR of 6-7 per cent over 2007-10. According to industry sources, organised retail is estimated to grow at CAGR of 25-30 per cent over 2007-10 to reach $60 billion.

Both existing and new players have announced aggressive expansion plans. Religare estimates that the organised retail sector will receive investments over $20 billion over next five years.

Vishal has highest EBITDA margin amongst peers like Shoppers’ stop and Pantaloon retail. The brokerage believes tighter cost control has enabled Vishal to record strong margin expansion, with the EBITDA margin coming in at over 11 per cent for 2006-07.

As a conservative measure, Religare has maintained the existing discount to peers in its valuation based on 2008-09 estimates, thus the target 2008-09 P/E multiple of 22.6 times for Vishal Retail, a 52 per cent discount to its peer. This gives a target price of Rs 1,018 for the stock, which signifies a price-to-sales ratio of 1 times 2008-09.