They made about 1260 cr. of profits last quarter, a quarterly EPS of 11.9. THat means this loss is about Rs. 10 per share of EPS. If they take the entire hit this financial year, I assume it will mean that they have an EPS of about Rs. 2 in the last quarter, a total EPS of around Rs. 32 for the year 07-08. [Note: 50m is already taken, the rest is yet to be taken]
The 06-07 EPS was around Rs. 34. That means they will suffer an EPS negative growth this year. We're already paying a trailing p/e of 30 (at current price of Rs. 970)
What will it take for this price be worth it? A 25% growth in EPS over last year. On 111.25 cr. shares, we are talking about a profit of Rs. 4400 crores on the year. Achievable? Yes, if:
- There are no more MTM losses. Marked to Market losses means they haven't yet booked the losses. The credit markets in the US are [bad word]ed. Absolutely and totally [bad word]ed. Chances are ICICI can't even book the losses if they tried, because there is no liquidity in these markets. More horror to come? Most likely yes; the minister's statement was as of January, and the CDS losses since then are another 10% or so since then (on the super senior tranches). Now that can mean a further loss of about 600 cr. to ICICI if it's true.
- EPS growth must be maintained. They had just 2% EPS Growth last quarter, and they have been selling their NPA home loans. Is the market turning sour on ICICI?
- One needs to remember that EPS is more difficult now that the number of shares has dramatically increased. ICICI must find good avenues to deploy this cash, in a market that seems to be going into a recession.
- If they don't do funny things with accounting. The latest news is:
Kochchar said the bank will book 'mark-to-market' loss of 70 million dollars on its investments in this quarter as credit spreads have widened due to subprime crisis.
I have a problem with this line of thinking. If the mark-to-market had INCREASED the value, Ms. Kochchar would be happily accounting for it as profit and saying it proves the real worth of ICICI and bla bla blah. Now because the market doesn't think their loans are quite as safe as they think, we should buy their argument that ICICI knows better?"We have accounted for the loss of about USD 90 million up to December, 2007. In this quarter, we have provided for a marked-to-market loss of about USD 70 million - USD 50 million in ICICI Bank and another USD 20 million in ICICI Bank subsidiaries," Kochhar said.
She clarified that the other USD 100 million losses, was on the composition of pure investments and notional in nature with no impact on the balance sheet.
"The securities are in the nature of investments and not loans so we have to mark-to-market the portfolio. However, they are good investments and have a sound underlying repayment schedule and the money is coming," she said.
If something goes wrong and the company defaults, no lender gets paid. In all probability ICICI has written CDSes based on some Indian companies' loans, which they think will not default. But what if they do? The market certainly seems to think they might.
This kind of funny accounting (not taking the hit on the losses, saying they are "investment losses" - what is that anyway? a loss is a loss - etc. is simply ridiculous. They're postponing the inevitable. Even worse, this can actually be an accounting scandal, but I don't want to get into that.
Disclosure: No positions. I'm not going short because the impact seems to be downplayed and accounting rules let them get away with it. A good time to short will be if they do badly AND the stock stays at these levels in April.
Related posts:
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- More Subprime – CDO Insurers Downgrade, Bad Doc Trails and The India Impact I wrote a long while ago about the Subprime problem...
- ICICI Bank Results – EPS Growth is 2% So ICICI Bank has announced it's 3rd Quarter Results. What...
- Subprime Hits India From Rediff: State Bank of India, ICICI Bank , Bank...
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>As per CNBC TV reports the losses claimed by the Commerce Ministry is on CDOs (rather than CDS) and is $6.7 Billion for ICICI alone.
If we take it at face value – and given the fact that even Alt-A is being written down by anywhere from 50c to 70c to the dollar we can estimate a minimum loss of $3.35 Billion (thats Billion).
If all figures are correct, it would be wrong to take management comments at face value as even the experts in the US do not seem to be able to fix true losses.
We are looking at MUCH BIGGER losses. And these have to be written down immediately (can’t be held as investment loss forever). Lets wait for details to emerge.
Meanwhile it would be wise to shift money in ICICI accounts to other banks :).
03.04.08 at 3:54 PM
>Kram: I think the total exposure is 2.2 billion $, and I haven’t seen a mention of CDOs only (could you post a link if you have one?)
Even on 2.2 billion, current losses should be much higher as you’ve mentioned. I doubt they will reveal details here as rules are lax and they are not required to.
03.04.08 at 5:50 PM
>Hi, you have got a real nice blog.
Count me in as your regular reader.
~Tabu
03.04.08 at 6:16 PM