Asian Paints (APNT IN) (Buy) - King Kong banging on his chest

Research evidence excerpt

Asian Paints (APNT IN) (Buy) - King Kong banging on his chest

ave indicated that the

competitive intensity has stabilized, APNT highlighted that discounting in the industry remains high.

APNT aims to focus on its key growth initiatives: 1) significant brand building investments to

improve the consumer reach and awareness; 2) increase in innovations/ differentiated new

products now account for 17% of sales (Fig.13); 3) strong impetus on painting service with Total Source: LSEG, Nomura

Assure, MetaCare and all-in-one solution with 74 Beautiful Homes; 4) increased focus on regional

customization with cultural/state-specific variants; 5) widening B2B / projects beyond builders and Research Analysts

housing societies to factories and government institutes; and 6) first phase (VAE) of backward India Consumer Related

integration project (VAM/VAE) is expected to commission by H1FY27E. Mihir P. Shah - NFASL

Maintain non-consensus Buy; lift TP to INR3,600; APNT trades at 44x Mar-28F EPS mihir.shah1@nomura.com

We lift FY27F/FY28F EPS by 8% each to factor in price hikes. We value APNT at 60x P/E (unchanged) +91 22 403 74232

on Mar-28F EPS (Dec-27F previously) to arrive at our new TP of INR3,600 (INR3,250 previously). We Riya Patni - NFASL

have a non-consensus Buy on APNT, as we believe peak competition is behind us and disruption was far riya.patni@nomura.com

and few despite the large investments from new entrants, indicating a strong moat for APNT. We forecast +91 22 405 33473

an EPS CAGR of 13% over FY26-29F. Risk: higher competitive intensity.

Year-end 31 Mar FY26 FY27F FY28F FY29F

Currency (INR) Actual Old New Old New Old New

Revenue (mn) 355,835 369,061 415,414 396,741 450,724 0 489,035

Reported net profit (mn) 43,254 47,386 51,040 53,328 57,700 0 64,197