Street shrugging off likely credit cost pain for Cholamandalam Investment

While management believes it has made adequate Covid-19 provisioning, analysts are skeptical

With eight per cent gains in August so far, the stock of Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company (Cholamandalam) has outperformed the Nifty Financial Services index, which is marginally down during the same period. Investors have taken stock of factors such as better-than-expected disbursements, some progress in repayment in moratorium book and the management’s commentary, which indicate no significantly excess Covid-19 credit cost (provisioning as percentage of loan book) going ahead.

In the June 2020 quarter (Q1), the company did not provide for Covid-19 as the management believes adequate provisions had already been made in the March 2020 quarter, which is 90