Investing Reflections On India

Rasi Electrodes is in the business of manufacturing welding electrodes and trading in copper coated mild steel (CCMS) wires. The company has a reasonably good brand image in certain of its segments. The company has reported reasonable growth in revenues over the last five years but the operating profits have remained largely the same.  It reported about 2cr of operating profits on revenues of about 21cr in the last financial year while employing modest financial leverage. The business is exposed to rising steel and rutile prices.  It also incurs heavy working capital investments resulting in hits to its operating cash flows.  Moreover, it will require heavy capital expenditure in the future as a result of PSU customers requiring it to operate with more of its own manufacturing facilities.  This will result in lower free cash flows, at least over the next few years. It is a net importer and hence, exposed to a weakening INR.  Moreover, it is still trading CCMS wire an

Austin Engineering Company (AEC) is in the business of manufacturing bearings for use in various basic industries such as automotive, defense, steel, cement, sugar, paper, agro-machinery etc. AEC has been operating in this industry for the last 30+ years and has an established brand name (‘AECL’) in the domestic bearing market with a wide distribution network and an established customer base. The company has reported reasonably stable operating profits on similarly stable revenues over the last five years barring the last financial year when it reported depressed operating profits of 6cr on revenues of about 80cr.   Previously, it reported average operating profits of about 12cr in the last five years.   It employed minimal net debt (4cr) to generate these results.   Due to the nature of its business, which requires relatively high stocking of inventory, the company has to invest in its working capital that negatively impacts its operating cash flows – but not too signif