Just Dial zooms over 50% in one week post stellar Q4 results

The stock rallied 23% to Rs 625 in intra-day trade today, zoomed 54% in past one week from Rs 407, as compared to 1.6% rise in the Sensex.

Just Dial has rallied 23% to Rs 625, extending its past four day’s gain of over 20% on the BSE, after the company reported 53.6% year on year growth in its net profit at Rs 390 million in March 2018 quarter (Q4FY18). The operational revenue during the quarter under review grew 10% at Rs 2,005 million over the previous year quarter.

Adjusted operating EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) margin, excluding ESOP expenses, stood at 24.4%, up 464 bps YoY and drop of 143 bps QoQ, Just Dial said in a press release.

In past one week, Just Dial zoomed 54% from Rs 407, as compared to 1.6% rise in the S&P BSE Sensex.

“With management’s focus back on search and bolstering it with continued advertising & sales personnel investments, we think durability of the franchise has been extended by a few years. But we remain concerned on the possibility of the franchise unraveling as Google builds up more local listings with its Google Maps feature,” analysts at Elara Capital said in quarterly update.

Our concerns on lack of pricing power & sales productivity improvement continue and we question whether Just Dial has platform effects typical of internet advertising. Given sales personnel addition and advertising support, we raise our revenue 3.9% for FY19E and 6.3% for FY20E. We hike our EBITDA margin by 29bp for FY19E and 101bp for FY20E given discontinued spends for trying t pivot the business model, the brokerage firm added with reiterates ‘sell’ rating on the stock.

We continue to value Just Dial on an average of DCF and forward 12-month March 2019E EPS of Rs 24.6 (from December 2018) to arrive at a new target price of Rs 325 from Rs 280 and reiterate Sell, the report said.

At 12:59 pm; Just Dial was trading 19% higher at Rs 604 on the BSE against 0.73% rise in the Sensex. The trading volumes on the counter jumped an over four-fold with a combined 20.2 million shares changed hands on the BSE and NSE so far.