Indo National

The company which changed its name from Indo-National Ltd to Nippo Batteries, continues to be traded on the BSE under the old name of Indo National. This South-India based company manufactures dry cell batteries.  The stock has immense fancy despite the fact the Japanese company, Panasonic Corporation which held 30.59% stake in the company, made an exit by selling off its stake to promoter, P. Dwaraknath Reddy for a total consideration of about Rs 56 crore. Post this, Mr.Reddy’s stake stands increased from 11.92% to 42.46%.  Total promoter stake is 74.85% of which 73.15% is pledged. From being a Indo-Japanese company, it is now a merely South India based small cap company.  

For Q1Fy16, though it had a flat sales of Rs.81 crore, up 2.5% (YoY), a 11% lower raw material cost and other income of Rs.2 crore v/s Rs.10 lakh in previous Q1, helped the company end the quarter with a 9% rise in net profit at Rs.6.54 crore. Thus overall, like always it was a dull and staid set of numbers. The attractiveness of the company is its very small equity base of Rs.3.75 crore and reserves stands at a hefty Rs.160 crore. That probably explains why the stock remains at even Rs.1034 levels, enjoying a PE of almost 60 times!