Benares Hotels Ltd

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

Benares Hotels Ltd trades at ₹9,511, building a base and 11 weeks into that stage. That is −0.1% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 11% of a 52-week range of ₹9,220 to ₹11,756. On relative strength it has been ahead of the NIFTY 500 on a trailing-13-week view for 9 straight weeks.

Today the stock is building a base — week 11 of stage 1, confirmed. At ₹9,511 it trades −0.1% versus its 200-day average and sits at 11% of its 52-week range (₹9,220–₹11,756).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 10.0 years the stock moved +851% while the NIFTY 500 moved +260% — ahead of the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock has been ahead for 9 straight weeks — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

→ The trend is one thing; the bill is another. Are you paying up for it? Next: the P/E sits at the 64th percentile of its own range.

Valuation P/E is the price of ₹1 of annual profit: how many rupees the market pays for each rupee the company earns in a year.

Benares Hotels Ltd trades at 28.1× P/E, mid-range by its own standards (64th percentile). Its long-run median P/E is 25.4×, measured across 10.0 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/E of 28.1× is mid-range by its own standards (64th percentile), against a long-run median of 25.4× measured over 10.0 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year annual EPS moved +20.0% against a −20.2% price move — earnings outran the price, pushing the multiple DOWN its own range.

The price move, decomposed: over 5y, of the +48.4%/yr price move, ~+73.5%/yr came from earnings growth and ~−25.1 pp from the multiple (compressing); over 10y, of the +25.3%/yr price move, ~+17.2%/yr came from earnings growth and ~+8.1 pp from the multiple (expanding). The split is the honest approximate (price return minus earnings growth); it makes the rally itself visible instead of hiding it behind the percentile.

Put together: the multiple is unremarkable against its own past, so the story rests on the earnings line underneath it, not the multiple.

→ Cheap or dear rides on the earnings. Are they actually growing? Next: the fundamental stage — where the business sits in its arc, and how growth has compounded.

Stage: Mixed Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

Benares Hotels Ltd reads as mixed on its fundamental arc. Mixed — no clean majority across the growth curves, ROCE holding at 37.0% — the per-curve reads carry the story. The read is built from 9 quarters across 3 curves, on partial evidence.

Why it matters: when the curves disagree, the per-curve reads above matter more than any single verdict.

One or more growth curves carry a base-effect spike — a large year-on-year move off a near-zero or loss-making comparable quarter. Those spikes are capped before the classifier reads the trajectory, and shown pinned on the chart, so a single distorted quarter does not drive the stage call.

Return readings here are annual, not quarterly — read as level and direction only; they can confirm the growth curves but never drive the stage on their own.

A partial read: at least one curve is short, or the returns curve is not the computed quarterly series — hold the stage word a little more loosely.

→ The stage names the trajectory. Next: the revenue line that produces it, quarter by quarter.

4-Factor Sector Score

58.1/100 — rank 6 of 24 in Hotels · 58% evidence confidence

Benares Hotels Ltd scores 58.1 out of 100 against the 24 companies it is compared with in Hotels, ranking 6. Fill the missing evidence before acting; the ranking is deliberately pulled toward neutral.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 16.4 + 19 + 8.6 + 14.1 = 58.1. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if profit growth turns negative or margin improvement reverses while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Revenue Revenue is the top line: everything the company billed its customers in the period.

Benares Hotels Ltd reported ₹42.0 Cr of revenue in the Dec 25 quarter, +7.7% year on year. Over 10 years it has compounded at 11.1% a year. The last full year, FY25, came in at ₹135 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹140 Cr.

Benares Hotels Ltd reported ₹42.0 Cr of revenue in the Dec 25 quarter, +7.7% year on year. Over 10 years it has compounded at 11.1% a year. The last full year, FY25, came in at ₹135 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹140 Cr.

FY25 revenue came in at ₹135 Cr (+11.6% on the year), capping 10 years at 11.1% compound. The latest quarter (Dec 25) printed ₹42.0 Cr, +7.7% year on year.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged +13.1% growth against the decade's 11.1% — the current year is running faster than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew +14.8% over the last 4 quarters against +11.3%/yr over the last 8 — accelerating; TTM profit +12.8% vs +17.3%/yr — rolling over.

→ Revenue grew — did margins hold as it scaled? Next: 47.0% this quarter (−1.0 pp YoY).

Operating margin Operating margin is what is left of every ₹100 of sales after running the business, before interest and tax. It is the cleanest read on pricing power and cost control.

Benares Hotels Ltd's operating margin is 47.0% in the Dec 25 quarter, −1.0 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. That is the widest this company has ever printed on a full-year basis. Across 12 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 2.0% to 44.0%. The current quarter is running above every full year in that window.

Benares Hotels Ltd's operating margin is 47.0% in the Dec 25 quarter, −1.0 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. That is the widest this company has ever printed on a full-year basis. Across 12 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 2.0% to 44.0%. The current quarter is running above every full year in that window.

The latest quarter's operating margin is 47.0%, −1.0 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 12 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 2.0%–44.0%, and FY25's 44.0% is the top of that band — a record year.

🚨 Why the margin moved: operating margin went −1.2 pp year on year while gross margin went +0.6 pp — the loss came mostly below the gross line: operating leverage, with costs spread over a bigger revenue base.

Worth repeating from the valuation section: cheap against its own history on record margins is not the same thing as cheap — a record margin flatters every ratio built on top of it.

→ Margins slipped — did that reach the bottom line? Next: profit +0.0% in the latest quarter.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

Benares Hotels Ltd earned ₹14.0 Cr of net profit in the Dec 25 quarter, +0.0% year on year. Full-year FY25 profit was ₹43.0 Cr. The 10-year compound rate is 16.9%. That is 33.3% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned ₹14.0 Cr.

Benares Hotels Ltd earned ₹14.0 Cr of net profit in the Dec 25 quarter, +0.0% year on year. Full-year FY25 profit was ₹43.0 Cr. The 10-year compound rate is 16.9%. That is 33.3% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned ₹14.0 Cr.

Dec 25 profit was ₹14.0 Cr, +0.0% year on year. On the full year, FY25 printed ₹43.0 Cr (+19.4%), and the 10-year compound rate is 16.9%.

🚨 Why profit moved: revenue contributed +7.7% and the margin −1.0 pp — the quarter was revenue-led, with the margin roughly flat.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit +13.1% vs revenue +13.1%. Profit and revenue are moving roughly in step.

→ Profit rose — but did the cash follow? Next: 109% of the last 3 years' profit arrived as cash.

Cash flow — the router The P&L says what was earned; the cash-flow statement says what actually arrived. Operating cash flow (CFO) against profit is the cleanest lie detector in the accounts.

Over the last 3 fiscal years 109% of Benares Hotels Ltd's reported profit arrived as operating cash — the cash follows the profit. In FY25 that was ₹42.0 Cr of operating cash against ₹43.0 Cr of profit. After ₹19.0 Cr of capital spending, ₹23.0 Cr was left as free cash.

FY25: operating cash of ₹42.0 Cr against reported profit of ₹43.0 Cr, leaving free cash of ₹23.0 Cr after ₹19.0 Cr of capital spending. Across the last 3 fiscal years the conversion rate is 109% of profit.

Cash-flow readings here are annual — that is the resolution our series carries, so this section moves once a year.

Why conversion sits at 109%: the cash cycle stretched 257 days between FY20 and FY25 — more of each rupee of profit waits inside the cycle before arriving.

Router verdict: the bigger cash user is investment — capital spending ran 1.6× depreciation over three years, so the next section's job is to check what that build-out is buying.

→ So follow the cash to where it goes. Next: ₹29.0 Cr of building over 3 years.

Where the cash goes Working capital is the cash tied up between paying suppliers and getting paid: debtor days (customers owe), inventory days (stock waits), and the cash conversion cycle (the whole loop, in days of sales).

Benares Hotels Ltd's cash conversion cycle runs 11 days in FY25, up from −246 days in FY20. Capital spending ran ₹29.0 Cr over the last 3 years. At FY25 sales of ₹135 Cr each day of that cycle holds about ₹0.4 Cr, so roughly ₹4.0 Cr sits inside the business at any moment.

FY25: debtors at 11 days (an asset-light business — no inventory to speak of) — for a full cycle of 11 days, looser than FY20's −246.

In money terms: at FY25 sales of ₹135 Cr, each day of the cycle holds about ₹0.4 Cr — so the 11-day loop keeps roughly ₹4.0 Cr sitting inside the business at any moment.

On the investment side: capital spending of ₹29.0 Cr over the last 3 fiscal years against ₹18.0 Cr of depreciation — the company is building well ahead of wear-and-tear. Capital work-in-progress stands at ₹19.0 Cr (FY25) — capacity paid for but not yet earning.

The synthesis: the cash is going into capacity, not disappearing into the cycle — the question becomes whether the new capacity earns.

→ Does all this activity actually earn its cost of capital? Next: ROCE is 37%.

Return on capital Return on capital employed (ROCE) is the profit the whole business earns on all the money in it — equity and debt together. It is the single best test of whether growth creates value or just size.

Benares Hotels Ltd earns a ROCE of 37% in FY25. That is up from a trough of −7% in FY21. A return-on-invested-capital spread against the cost of capital is not computable from what is held here. The wiring behind it is 31.9% net margin on 0.69× asset turns.

FY25 ROCE is 37%, recovered from a FY21 trough of −7% — the full ladder below shows the fall and the climb, undoctored.

Why the return is what it is — the wiring (FY25): 31.9% net margin × 0.69× asset turns × 1.13× balance-sheet leverage ≈ 24.9% on equity. Margin is doing the heavy lifting; leverage is modest — this is an earned return, not a borrowed one.

→ Returns like these — is the balance sheet borrowing to make them? Next: debt-to-equity is 0.02.

Debt Debt-to-equity says how much of the business is funded by borrowings; interest cover says how many times operating profit pays the interest bill. Low and high, respectively, is the safe corner.

Benares Hotels Ltd carries ₹4.0 Cr of borrowings against ₹172 Cr of equity in FY25, a debt-to-equity of 0.02. Over 5 years borrowings went from ₹9.0 Cr to ₹4.0 Cr. Capital spending ran ₹29.0 Cr across the last 3 of those years.

FY25: borrowings of ₹4.0 Cr against equity of ₹172 Cr — a debt-to-equity of 0.02. Over 5 years borrowings went from ₹9.0 Cr to ₹4.0 Cr while capital spending ran ₹29.0 Cr in just the last 3 — the build-out is being paid for out of cash, not debt.

→ Who owns this, and are they adding or leaving? Next: the register is quiet.

Ownership Who owns the stock, quarter by quarter: promoters (the controlling owners), foreign and domestic institutions, and the public. Steady accumulation by people close to the numbers is a signal; a quiet register is also an answer.

No holder of Benares Hotels Ltd moved a full percentage point over the last two years — the register is quiet. Foreign institutions moved +0.0 points over the same window, to 0.0%. The register is read on the four disclosed classes only; nothing is inferred between filings.

The register over the last two years — Promoters: +0.0 points over 8 quarters to 62.6%; Foreign institutions: +0.0 points over 8 quarters to 0.0%; Domestic institutions: +0.0 points over 8 quarters to 0.0%.

→ One last check: does the safety math agree? Next: the balance-sheet safety line.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

Benares Hotels Ltd: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one. It is a distance-to-distress estimate from the balance sheet, not a forecast of failure. The debt, cash-flow and return sections above carry the balance-sheet evidence this page does hold, and each of them states its own reporting date.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one.

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