ZEE ENTERTAINMENT ENTERPRISE LTD:A Business at inflection point !!!

Scrip Code: 505537 / ZEEL

CMP:  Rs. 149.80; Buy at current levels .
Short term Target: Rs. 160; STOP LOSS – Rs. 137.81; Market Cap: Rs. 14,290.28 Cr; 52 Week High/Low: Rs. 152.00 / Rs. 105.55

Total Shares: 95,39,57,720 shares; Promoters : 41,84,72,440 shares –43.87 %; Total Public holding : 53,54,85,280 shares – 56.13 %; Book Value: Rs. 31.39; Face Value: Rs. 1.00; EPS: Rs. 6.44; Div: 150 % ; P/E: 23.25 times; Ind. P/E: 23.26; EV/EBITDA: 16.48

Total Debt: Rs. 1.90 Cr; Enterprise Value: Rs. 31,424.32 Cr.

ZEE ENTERTAINMENT ENTERPRISES LTD: Zee Entertainment Ltd was founded in the year 1982, based in Mumbai. Company was formerly known as Zee Telefilms Limited and changed its name to Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited in January 2007. ZEEL, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a vertically integrated media and entertainment company in India. It operates in three segments: Broadcasting and Content, Education, and Film Production. The Broadcasting and Content segment develops, produces, and procures television programming and film content, and delivers through satellites, cable, and Internet. It broadcasts channels, such as Hindi general entertainment channels and regional language general entertainment channels, Bollywood channels, sports channels, English entertainment channels, alternate lifestyle channels. Company earns revenues by the way of advertisement and subscription revenues and syndication. The Education segment engages in distribution of software learning products; and provides education and training in information technology. The Film Production segment produces and distributes films. The company has a library housing approximately 1,00,000 hours from 80,000 hours of television content; and rights to approximately 3,000 movie titles. Effective March 29, 2010, Zee News Ltd. demerged its Regional General Entertainment Channel Business Undertaking and transferred its operation to Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited It has operations in India, the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. ZEEL can be compared with Sun Tv Network Ltd, Network 18 Media & Investment Ltd and Television Broadcasts Limited.

Investment Rationale:

The management has not provided any guidance for growth in advertising revenues for the coming year, on account of poor industry environment. On subscription revenues, the company has guided for a low double digit growth on account of further gains from Mediapro. Content expenses of the company are likely to rise in the coming quarters, on higher costs of content and higher selling and distribution expenses on new channels and its marketing spending. The company had earlier guided for a loss of Rs. 65 Cr – Rs. 75 Cr in sports, and further investments of Rs. 50 Cr to Rs. 100 Cr on investments in new channels/ content. Zee Entertainment shall see a fairly strong growth in advertising revenues against the industry if the current trends in ratings are to be sustained. The company has launched new programs  in new formats, and so the company shall outperform media peers in advertising revenue growth in the coming year. ZEE’s JV named Mediapro has clearly created benefits for Zee Entertainment in excess of market expectation. And so the growth of 13 % in the domestic subscription revenues in FY13 along with the 10 % growth in expenses is factored in. And so, the result of these changes can been seen on PAT estimate & is believed that the company's improving competitive position, especially in the Hindi GEC space will have significant positive effect. The strong performance of Zee TV implies that Zee Entertainment revenues could move counter to the industry in the coming year, which is a significant positive.

Outlook and Valuation:

ZEE has launched a couple of new initiatives that include Ditto TV – it’s over the top platform, and channels Ten HD and Ten Golf. Till yet, the company's media initiatives have largely been in niches rather than mainline channels. The company has noted that the advertising revenues for the quarter were weaker in last year largely due to sports properties. The subscription revenues have shown a strong growth. On the above it is noted that the subscription revenues have been impacted positively by changing accounting methods for Mediapro which was from equity accounting to proportionate consolidation which added about Rs. 50.60 Crs to domestic subscription revenues for 9 months of this year, secondly, the same affected cost items- resulting in significant margin compression for the quarter, and lastly, the changes in treatment of forex items leaded to strong growth in items below EBITDA line, affecting PAT positively (relative to EBITDA). ZEE is investing in international businesses, which could accelerate overseas revenues over the long term. Even though the loss in sports division has often been considered a bane for ZEE, sports channels and HD will aid ARPU growth for ZEE over the longer term.  There is a huge under‐declared subscriber base of about 7.5 Cr (likely to come under its ambit post digitisation and MediaPro (a Joint Venture with Star) which will entail humungous potential for ZEE. Zee TV’s viewership rating is near its one‐year high, which makes ZEE well positioned for the fresh ad deals - ZEE TV has crossed the 250 Gross Rating Points (100 GRP means either that 100 % of targeted households are reached once per week or 1 % of them are reached 100 times in the week or any combination thereof, also called homes per rating points) mark after more than 1.5 years to strengthen its place as the No.2 behind Star Plus. This development has mainly come from a good performance of fiction shows. The full- year results are a better indicator of the performance of the company and so the company could show best performance at the PAT level as well as at the top-line. The subscription revenue growth & ad revenue growth which amounts to 20%-25% to its total revenues could be a key positive surprise on full year basis, and key negative for the year could be decline in selling, growth in other expenses. The Sports business losses has always been a headache for the company due to higher expenses on account of rupee depreciation, and partly on account of launches of new channels -Ten Golf and Ten HD. On the results, management has indicated that the company has, ex-sports, seen a positive growth in advertising revenues. ZEE reported 20.6 % rise in net profit for the quarter ended June 30,2012 at Rs. 157 Cr on back of strong advertising and subscription revenues. Advertising revenues for April - June rose 18 % to Rs. 447.2 Cr, while subscription revenue were at Rs. 364.2 Cr (Rs. 250.5 Cr from domestic & Rs. 113.7 Cr internationally) were up 19 % year on year. The company's consolidated operating revenue for June 2012 quarter also witnessed a 21 % increased at Rs. 843 Cr YoY while consolidated operating profit grew 50 % to Rs. 233.2 Cr. EBITDA & Net Profit margin stood at 27.7 % and 18.6 % respectively. During this quarter, ZEE TV averaged 215 GRPs recording a relatively share of 21.2 % among the top five hindi General Entertainment Channels & now No.2 GEC in terms of rating, also its market share in the prime time band improved significantly wherein ZEE TV averaged 122 GRPs recording a relative share of 23.1 %. At the current market price of Rs. 149.80, the stock is trading at 21.09 x FY13E and 14.98 x FY14E respectively. Earnings per share (EPS) of the company for FY13E and FY14E are seen at Rs. 7.10 and Rs. 10.00 respectively. With sturdy free cash flow generation of about Rs.1,000 Cr with minimal debt, it is expected that the company will keep its secular growth story intact with stable dividend policy will make ZEE the best stock to own in defensive space. One could BUY ZEE ENTERTAINMENT ENTERPRISES LTD with a target price of Rs. 200 for Medium to Long term investment and for the SHORT TERM PLAYERS it should be Rs. 160.00 

KEY FINANCIALS	FY11	FY12	FY13E	FY14E
SALES (Rs. Crs)	3,008.80	3,040.50	3,276.60	3,656.90
NET PROFIT (Rs. Crs)	605.50	590.60	632.90	751.60
EPS (Rs.)	6.30	6.10	7.10	10.00
PE (x)	21.50	23.50	22.00	18.60
P/BV (x)	3.90	3.60	3.10	2.90
EV/EBITDA (x)	14.80	17.20	14.40	11.60
ROE (%)	17.50	18.10	17.30	18.10
ROCE (%)	18.10	18.40	17.20	17.50

I would buy ZEE ENTERTAINMENT ENTERPRISE LTD with a price target of Rs. 160 for the short term and Rs. 200 for the medium to long term target. As I always say, I am a long term believer in markets & I do respect the markets and will keep a strict stop loss of 8 % or Rs. 137.81 on every purchase. 

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