Founded in 1977 by technocrats, Manjushree started as a small umbrella manufacturing unit in Guwahati, Assam. In 1984 it forayed into manufacturing of Plastic Flexible packaging and came up with its IPO in 1995 to diversify into PET bottles manufacturing with a unit in Bangalore.

Today it has carved out its own niche in the PET bottling industry. It boasts of a marquee client list the likes of Coca Cola, Pepsico, Bisleri, P&G, GSK, Nestle, Cadbury and Unilever and has emerged as the supplier of choice. With two manufacturing units in Bangalore, installed capacity in FY10 is ~30,000 metric tonnes.

Main product lines include PET jars and bottles, PET preforms, PP and Multilayer containers.

Manjushree Technopack has made steady progress over last 5 years. Sales have grown at ~25 percent CAGR while EPS on an adjusted basis has grown at over 60 percent CAGR.

Sources of Growth

1. Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSD) market is growing at over 30 percent CAGR. For Coke and Pepsi India has emerged as the fastest growing market in FY09 with both announcing huge investment plans. Coca Cola says its $250 Mn India investment plan is on track while Pepsico India had announced a Rs 1,000-crore investment for 2009.

2. Product Mix has shifted in favour of PET Pre-forms which bring in enormous efficiencies in storage and transportation (1/5x fully blown shapes) and benefit both the packaging company and the beverage manufacturer. All major beverage manufacturers have installed Pre-form blowing machines at their bottling plants.

Manjushree was early to spot this trend and has now emerged as the largest organised player in PET Pre-forms. Huge capacity expansion from ~9000 MT in FY2008 to ~21000 MT in FY09 to ~30000 MT in FY10. For a company of its size, this is pretty aggressive expansion but seems to have paid off, as it has quietly become a dominant player in its niche, becoming Coke’s largest PET supplier.

Over the last few years Manjushree has shown steady improvements on Net Margin front going upto over 7 percent in FY09. Operating margins have similarly climbed upto over 16 percent. These are pretty decent numbers for the highly competitive Plastics Packaging industry.

The record on Return on Equity and Return on Capital Employed at ~13 percent and 15 percent may seem nothing to write home about. But compare these over the industry and one can see these are again industry-beating returns and margins.

The company’s performance on Debtor days and Inventory days over the years has shown a gradual improvement and speaks well of management focus on operational efficiency.

Manjushree has a good track record on Dividend payment. It has been regularly paying dividends and current Dividend Payout ratio stands at ~21 percent. The company has been increasing dividends in tune with profitability and 5 year dividend CAGR is at a healthy ~35 percent.

Overall Manjushree appears to be a well-run company in a highly competitive industry.

While on most parameters there is gradual improvement, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) shows good improvement coming down to to about 74 percent from 77 percent in FY05. Operating margins are sustaining at over 16 percent for last 2 years showing a big uptick from ~12 percent levels 3 years back.

Manjushree Technopack seems to be getting better at managing its operations as it scales up.

In its bid for growth Manjushree seems to have used Financial Leverage judiciously to its advantage, in the last 5 years or so. From a relatively high financial leverage (Assets/Equity) of 2.79 in FY05, Manjushree has brought this down to more conservative levels of 1.49 in FY09. It is when we see financial leverage ratios of 4, 5, or more that companies start to get really risky.

Manjushree has maintained comfortable levels of Interest Coverage. FY09 figure stands at a comfortable ~9x Interest expense. In fact Interest Coverage figures have grown 3 times in the last 5 years, steadily climbing year on year from about 2.5x levels in FY05. This points to a steadily improving financial health condition. Debt to Equity at 0.49 in FY09, is also at comfortable levels after hovering on the higher side in FY05 and FY06.

Manjushree has been maintaining healthy liquidity levels more or less consistently. FY09 Current Ratio at 4.8x and Quick Ratio at ~3x, indicate that Manjushree can always raise enough cash, if it had to say, pay off its liabilities all at once. However such high levels of Current Ratio might also suggest Manjushree Management is retaining too much cash on hand and is not perhaps putting that to the best use.