Now, this is also in a way reflective of what is happening in the overall consumer sector. But on the footwear side, it has been more drastic. There should be some consumer revival this year because of lower inflation, lower interest rates, lower tax rates, etc, and how that percolates down to the overall consumer sector and the footwear sector will determine how the stock will go. You rightly said that it is near 52-week low, so most of the negatives seem to be in the price. But whether volume growth and value growth will come back that will determine how the stock will do, otherwise it will continue to be in a range.
What is your take on whether now Reliance can finally be the counter wherein you can see some big announcements coming in in terms of where they will deploy this Rs 2200 odd crore from the stake sale of Asian Paints pouring in.Sandip Sabharwal: I think this sale also is likely to be that of Reliance which was left off last week. Now they do not get 2200 crores, they get overall I think around 10,000 odd crores and they have huge debt so they can just use it to repay the debt. And in terms of news flow, we do not really need more news flow coming out of Reliance, we actually need them to deliver on the new investments and profitability from those investments and generate some cash flows. So, if they do that, then we will see another rerating cycle. In any case, the stock has done well lately and should do well because we should see a good earning cycle over the next two years. How much the new ventures will deliver in terms of profitability will determine how much better the stock can do. You had a knee-jerk reaction I guess or call it the overall market weakness on Friday when InterGlobe aviation fell about 5% at the session lows, recovered a little bit, was still down about 3.5% on lows, perhaps a reaction to that very unfortunate Air India incident. But do you sense A) that there could be a further decline in the stock and if there should be a further decline, should it be bought?Sandip Sabharwal: In the near term, there is a possibility there could be a further decline because some of the western aircraft routes remain disruptive, so that could impact some aviation traffic. Some aviation traffic from international passengers could also get disrupted because of the various conflicts which are going on. But it is a very strong company with a base which is unlikely to be disruptive. So, such corrections will only give opportunities to long-term investors to buy. The extent of the correction and how long it lasts will depend on how long the entire conflict, etc, lasts. But overall, next 8-10 days we should see some settling down and to that extent that give opportunities in InterGlobe Aviation also.
