Research Calls - Pantaloon Retail

Motilal Oswal Securities recommends a 'buy' on Pantaloon Retail. The report states that the company has a strong entrepreneurial culture which has allowed it to scale up rapidly.

The management has aggressive growth plans and the report expects total retail space to grow to more than 80 lakh sq ft by end of FY08, a CAGR of 60 per cent (FY05-FY08). Hyper expansion plans will further strengthen the company's position.

The report expects the growth momentum to accelerate over next three years driven by expansion in retail space. Revenues are expected to grow at 64 per cent CAGR through FY05-FY08 and earnings may grow at a CAGR of 69 per cent during the same period.

Pantaloon is the largest Indian organised retailer, with almost 21 lakh sq ft of retail space under its belt. It is present in almost all categories and its stores span different delivery formats, from departmental stores to hypermarkets and specialty stores.

Bharti Tele-Ventures

Motilal Oswal Securities maintains its 'buy' on Bharti Tele-Ventures. The report states that the wireless industry added 35.1 lakh subscribers in November 2005, the highest ever monthly additions by the industry.

GSM operators added 23.2 lakh subscribers for November 2005, the highest subscriber additions, led by strong performance by BSNL, Bharti and Hutch. CDMA operators added 11.8 lakh subscribers, the highest ever monthly additions.

Bharti added 675,636 subscribers for the month, marginally higher than the previous month's additions of 672,450. The report adds that Bharti's subscriber additions in the existing circles remained steady over the last six months. The B-circle witnessed the strongest growth in November, followed by the A-circle.

However, the subscriber additions in new circles was disappointing, declining 6.4 per cent from the additions in October 2005 to 158,694 in November 2005, thereby muting the overall increase in additions for Bharti.

Shringar Cinema

Brics PCG Research recommends a buy on Shringar Cinema. The report states that the multiplex phenomenon in a tremendous growth phase: Although multiplexes account for only 2.3 per cent of the total screen population in India, they contributed around 28-34 per cent of the total box-office collections of the top 50 Hindi films in FY04.

Over 60 additional multiplexes with more than 220 screens are slated to commence operations by the end of FY06, depicting a growth rate of 80-100 per cent y-o-y from 73 multiplexes in FY04.

This increase would be fuelled by a tremendous growth phase of the organised retail sector from a mere two per cent in FY04 to around 10-12 per cent in FY10.

Shringar, a leading multiplex player, currently operates three multiplexes in Mumbai and one each in Nashik and Kolkata under the brand name Fame. It has aggressive plans to put up 36 multiplexes with 161 screens across 20 cities over the next three years.

Driven by the expansion in the number of multiplexes, going forward and riding on the entertainment tax benefit available across states, the company is expected to register a topline CAGR of 79 per cent over FY05-FY08E.