Enterprise Long Term Truck Rental Lease: Fill & Download for Free

Shankara Building Products is a leading organised retailer of home improvement and building products in India. It operates its retail stores under the brand name Shankara Buildpro. It’s a unique kind of business.As on 31st December 2016(third quarter), it operated 103 Shankara Buildpro stores spread across 9 states and one union territory. Majority of its stores are located in the Western and Southern India - Shankara BuildPro outlets are concentrated in Karnataka, Telangana, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Goa.As of December 31, 2016, the average size of its store was approximately 3,624 sq.ft., and of 103 stores, 86 stores were on leased premises while 17 stores were on owned premises. The average rental cost of leased retail store premises stood at Rs 15.97 and Rs 15.99 per sq.ft. per month for Fiscal 2016 and for the nine months period ended December 31, 2016, respectively.It essentially sells its products to three different categories of customers - Retail sales(B2C business), Enterprise sales(B2B) and Channel Sales(B2B).Retail sales(B2C)Under the retail operations, the company offers a comprehensive range of products at our stores, including structural steel, cement, TMT bars, hollow blocks, pipes and tubes, roofing solutions, welding accessories, primers, solar heaters , plumbing, tiles, sanitary ware, water tanks, plywood, kitchen sinks, lighting and other allied products.It carries third part brands such as Johnson, Sintex, Uttam Galva, Uttam Value, Futura, APL Apollo, Astral Pipes and Alstone. It also sells some products under its own brands such as CenturyRoof, Ganga and Loha at its retail stores.The company serves home owners, professional customers (such as architects and contractors), and small enterprises, through its retail stores. Additionally, in the semi urban markets, it also caters to specific agricultural requirements of individual customers and small enterprises.Retail sales is a B2C business and so it commands a higher margin than Enterprise sales and Channel sales. The company has consistently increased the share of Retail sales from less than 20% in 2012 to about 42% as on (9 months)Q3 FY-17. Retail revenue has grown at a CAGR of 28.67% between 2012 to 2016.The company has consistently grown its retail stores from 43 in 2012 to 95 at the end of 2016, which now stands at 103(Q3).From Fiscal 2012 to Fiscal 2016, the annual number of retail transactions increased from 97,639 to 395,697 thereby increasing its retail customer base, which is also evident from a decrease in average transaction size from Rs 30,185 to Rs 20,413.For Fiscals 2014, 2015 and 2016, its retail stores recorded same store sales growth of 13.25%, 24.19% and 28.29%, respectively.Enterprise and Channel sales(B2B)Enterprise sales caters primarily to large end-users, contractors, and OEMs, while the channel sales caters to dealers and other retailers through the company’s extensive branch network. In these operations it primarily offer steel based products, such as structural steel, TMT bars, pipes and tubes and other allied steel products.These products have wide application and cater to multiple sectors, including, among others, housing, general engineering, automotive, renewable energy, agriculture, construction and infrastructure.The company also provides customized solutions to its enterprise customers through its bespoke steel products such as bus bodies, scaffolding solutions and other allied products for select clients.During the nine months period ended December 31, 2016 and in Fiscal 2016, revenue from enterprise sales was Rs 570 crore and Rs 6,55 crore, respectively, and revenue from channel sales was Rs 423 crore and Rs 5,72 crore, respectively.For 9 months period at the end of Q3, Enterprise sales contributed 33.35% and channel sales contributed 25% to the total sales.Backward IntegrationSelect building products like steel pipes, colour coated roofing sheets, bright rods, galvanized strips and cold rolled strips are processes through the company’s own processing facilities.The company sells these products under its own brands like CenturyRoof, Ganga, Loha, Taurus and Prince Galva through its own retail and branch network. Own processing facilities help it to offer customised solutions and meet quality standards as well as timely delivery requirements of its customers.As on December 31, 2016, the company had 11 processing facilities having a total installed capacity of 323,200 MTPA operating at an average capacity utilization of 93.81% (annualized). In January 2017, the company commenced production at its stainless steel pipes and tubes processing facility in Jigani, Bengaluru which has an installed capacity of 1,200 MTPA. These capacities can be scaled in a modular manner as per requirement.Logistics NetworkTo cater to its customers, it has its own logistics network which, as of December 31, 2016, consisted of 56 warehouses (29 operated by the Company, 23 operated by TVSPPL and 4 operated by CRIPL) aggregating 0.59 million sq. 41 ft., and a fleet of 44 owned trucks to augment the last mile delivery. A large part of warehousing backbone is owned by the company which ensures stability of operations. It also helps in catering to the requirements of its retail outlets.Future StrategiesScaling retail presence: The company intends to enhance its retail presence by opening more Shankara Buildpro stores in the future. For 9 months of FY-17 it has opened 8 new stores. It also intends to leverage its logistics network and processing facilities to expand its retail presence across India.Enhancing product offerings: The company intends to increase its existing product portfolio by adding more product categories and more brands in existing product categories such as electrical and decorative paints. The company intends to increase third party brands and its own brands either through in-house capabilities or through contract manufacturing.Increasing presence in bespoke products : It intends to capitalize on its specialization in processing customized steel products by deepening its presence in bespoke products, where the company is backward integrated with its own processing facilities.Inorganic Integration: The company has in the past successfully acquired and integrated certain companies such as CRIPL for roofing solutions and VPSPL for tube and strips processing. This has enabled it to backward integrate its business operations and strengthen its value chain. It also intends to continue to explore such business opportunities, including through inorganic acquisitions, and foraying into new product verticals, depending on market conditions and emerging business opportunities.Key RisksUncertainty regarding the housing market, real estate prices, economic conditions and other factors beyond the company’s control could adversely affect demand for its products and services, its costs of doing business and our financial performance.Any disruptions in the company’s logistics or supply chain network and other factors affecting the distribution of its merchandise could adversely impact its operations, business and financial condition.The inflation or deflation of product prices could affect our pricing, demand for our products, sales and profit margins as can be seen from fluctuating EBITDA margins.Revenue and profit growth has been low in the past.Financial analysisBalance SheetThe company has kept its short term borrowings at the same levels over the last 4 years. For 31st December, it stands at Rs 263 crore. Meanwhile its reserves and surplus have increased consistently, resulting in a decline in debt/equity which is now less than one.The company’s long term borrowings are negligible. It has been increasing its fixed assets consistently over the last five years, mostly from internal accruals.The company has kept control over its working capital needs in the past, which is the main reason for less than one time D/E.Income StatementRevenue grew at 9.5% CAGR during FY-12 to FY-16.EBITDA grew at 14.4% CAGR during FY-12 to FY-16.Net profit grew at 8.6% CAGR during FY-12 to FY-16.The company has been able to improve its EBITDA margins in last two years from 4.5% to about 6.3% currently.ROE has witnessed a lot of fluctuations during the last 5.75 years. It declined from 18.6% in FY-12 to 8.9% in FY-15 only to rise to 14.2% in FY-16 and an estimated 16% for FY-17. The reason for this fluctuation was an increase in finance cost during FY-15 and FY-14, coupled with low EBITDA margins during these two years.ROCE has also shown the same trend, though it has improved a lot during last two years - above 20%.Cash Flow StatementCash Flow from operations improved a lot during FY-16, FY-15 and FY-14 because of a control over working capital. It declined to 8.7 crore for the 9 months period FY-17, because of an increase in working capital needs because of a bit faster growth in revenue for the current year.Cumulative CFO during the last 5.75 years is 50–60% of EBITDA.The company has been consistently investing in fixed assets resulting in a negative CFI.The company has been paying a small amount of dividend.ValuationTotal outstanding shares before the issue: 2.18 croreFresh issue : 45 crore(mostly for debt reduction)Price Band : Rs 440 - Rs 460 per shareTotal outstanding shares after the issue : 2.27 croreExpected Market Cap at the upper band : 1048 croreEstimated valuations:There are no comparable listed companies in the home improvement and building products retailing segment.ConclusionIf the company continues the strategy of increasing the share of its retailing business, which it has been doing, the business can show more improvement in profitability. High capacity utilization for existing processing facilities implies that the management is using capital for Capex very judiciously.The current share of retailing business is only 40%, so there is a lot of growth potential in this business. On the other hand, Enterprise and Channel businesses are low margin, high working capital businesses.Increasing share of retailing business has resulted in higher gross margins, which coupled with cost controls have resulted in higher EBITDA margins and ROCE during the last two years. However, revenue growth has been slow during the last 5 years.Valuation seems to be reasonable.

I learntThat I could make good moneyThat it didn’t have to take up much of my timeThat problems arise, but are surmountableThat buying another property purely for Airbnb rentals would be a good financial and time investment, given the right situation.I found all this out, by conducting The Great Airbnb Experiment.*****My full answer below is from my blog - thecurioushost.com .******My wife was leaving me. I was going to be ALONE. A stranger in a foreign land. With a 15 month old child.My wife was leaving me. To go on a work secondment. She’d be back in 4 months. I was going to be alone, in a place others dream of moving to - the Sunshine City in the Sunshine State. My wife would be in the Middle East working 16 hour days.I felt so sorry for myself.I needed something to distract me. I came up with a plan…The Great Airbnb ExperimentI decided to make a run back to Britain, to stay with family, visit friends, to check on my rental property there, surf as much as possible, and mostly, to free up our Florida home so that it could generate some income. I booked my flights - I’d be gone February to June. My flights were paid for by airmiles. I began preparing for The Great Airbnb Experiment.Why do The Great Airbnb Experiment?Life is an experiment. If you give something a go and succeed, your hypothesis proved true. If it doesn’t succeed, there was a flaw in the hypothesis, or in the method of conducting the experiment. This is true for everything in life.If you can foster this attitude then risks are more manageable and failures are easier to swallow - just as a scientist doesn’t failsimply because his experiment produces a result he wasn’t expecting. He learns from it.Specifically in this case, The Great Airbnb Experiment would test the following:How much money the house could make on AirbnbWhat the time commitment of running an Airbnb would beWhat unforeseen problems might occurWhether buying another property purely for Airbnb rentals would be a good financial and time investment.Mostly, I wanted to see if the house could earn enough through Airbnb to cover the mortgage and other outgoings to enable my wife and I to use it as a vacation property rather than rent it as long term rental property when we eventually move on to pastures new. Having a vacation home on the Florida Gulf Coast that pays for itself (or even hopefully turns a profit) seems like a good thing - passive income, property investing plus free holidays!Setting up The Great Airbnb ExperimentI wasn’t going to use a Property Manager.I spoke to a few and they weren’t really offering anything of value to me. They could save me time, but as a stay at home dad I have time in abundance - the boy takes long naps! I’ve thought long and hard about whether you really need a property manager, and in this case I didn’t. Since I was going to be 3000 miles away I needed to rely on automation as much as possible. I thought long and hard about the situation, and came up with 10 Tips to Automate AirBnB to easily manage a vacation rental remotely.In addition to those tips, since this was my primary residence I had some more ground work to do in advance. I had to :Ensure all essential paperwork was scanned and stored electronically and then box up the originals and store them at a friend’s house for safe keeping. Things like bank statements (which are available online) were simply shredded. I did a LOT of shredding.Lock valuables away - our house has 3 bedrooms, but we decided to put a lock on the master bedroom and store our personal belonging in there. Items of real value were stored with a friend, but most things were locked in the master bedroom. We also decluttered as much as possible. It really is true that the less you have, the less you have to worry about.Put Vehicles in storage - we wanted our guests to be able to use our drive way, and didn’t want to block the street with our cars which would inconvenience our neighbours. So my wife left her car at work (with their blessing) and I stored my truck at a friend’s car port - the Florida heat can be brutal on paint work, so I was grateful to be able to store it out of direct sunlight. Putting the vehicles in storage also meant we were able to save on insurance - about $600. Once I’d seen how big this saving was, I was inspired to keep going with my other bills - our phone contracts were put on hold, as was our gym contract, and our cable cut to the basic package. All in I suspect this saved over a thousand dollars. Life in America is expensive.Set up Paperless billing - I’d done this for most things already, but I now ensured every bill was automatic. I also ensured that all correspondence was sent electronically (where I had the option).Mail forwarding - I considered setting up mail forwarding, so that the US postal service would forward my mail to the UK. However, the cost proved prohibitive. I decided I had been thorough enough in combing through all my bills to ensure they were sent electronically, and so I asked the post office to simply hold my mail instead, which they do for free. In future I will look into a postal scanning service. If you have any experience with this type of service please let me know in the comments!Make up another guest room - I took the crib out of our son’s room (and all his clothes and toys) and put a king sized bed in there instead. We already had the box springs, so I just bought the mattress and bedding for about $150 on amazon. I added two side tables and some lamps as finishing touches. So in total we offered two bedrooms with king beds, plus an airbed and also a travel cot. This meant we could accommodate up to six guests plus a baby.Results of The Great Airbnb Experiment1. Making money!We made money. Success. We made around $12,000 in total over the four months. This made a small profit after deducting our mortgage, insurance and property taxes (which are ridiculously high in America, and one of the reasons I suggest if you are a UK expats that you rent in America and keep your UK home as a Rental Property).However, since we would have been paying these costs ourselves if I had stayed in Florida, and I was staying with family for free in the UK, this meant the Airbnb produced a nice lump sum of savings. Coupled with all the overtime my wife did during her secondment, we are going to put this money towards another Rental Property.I had set a cheap nightly price to begin with, to get some good reviews. I intended to push up the price once we had hit 5 reviews. However, Florida’s tourist season is from November to April - the warm sunny winter is perfect, but it gets too hot after that for some people. So I kept prices on the lower end. If I had done the experiment in the peak season, I think we could have got quite a bit more money per night.2. Time commitmentThe main time commitment was the set up time. Cleaning the house. Decluttering. Sorting all our paperwork. Shredding. Pre-emptive maintenance work. Installing the electronic locks. Taking photos. Setting up our Airbnb listing. Changing our insurance provider to one that would allow us to do short term rental. The list goes on… Once I was over in the UK, the work was pretty much done. Using the 10 tips to Automate Airbnb worked a treat - I really didn’t need to do very much! Most of the time I just watched the dollars roll in!I didn’t have to reply to booking enquiries as I had set up automated responses. Most of the communication was automated - I will be posting my AirBNB communication strategy here. All I had to do was liaise with the cleaner and gardener. I will work out a way to do this automatically too if I do it long term.3. ProblemsOnline paymentsI had to pay the cleaner and gardener and I didn’t want to use PayPal since it would charge them 4% commission for each payment. That didn’t seem fair. If you are from the UK, you’ll probably be wondering why this was complicated. Just do an online bank transfer, right? Well, US Banks are very outdated compared to UK ones. Cheques are still very very common in America, and most small service providers aren’t set up for card payments. Bank transfers between different banks are not free. They are not even always possible.So I found Venmo. Venmo is owned by PayPal but is only used for sending money between friends. And didn’t charge a commission. It worked great, but when I got to the UK it wanted me to reconfirm my identity by sending a text code. To my US phone number... but I’d put my US phone contract on hold, so couldn’t get the code. Eventually they unlocked my account after 5 days. But it wasn’t ideal. If I did this remotely again I would try to find a better solution to this problem.PlumbingWe also had a plumbing issue. The toilet blocked. When a guest was staying there. This was the true test of my remote management skills. I needed to liaise between the guest, the Home Warranty company, the plumbers provided by the Home Warranty company, and the cleaner (since the plumber wouldn’t come unless there was someone in the house to let them in, even though we had the electric door lock). This was a bit of a pain, but not much more than if I had been stateside. The only added layer was liaising with the cleaner to make sure she was in the house when the plumber arrived. Since this went above and beyond cleaning, I suggested we add a $25 “call our charge” every time I needed to ask her to pop over to the house for anything other than for cleaning. As she lives in the house opposite this wasn’t too big a favor. She was happy with this. I really relied on her, so this worked well for me too.The big one - the CitationI had a run in with the law. As a lawyer, that’s not a good thing. As a business, that an even worse thing. Before starting the experiment I paused and wonder whether Airbnb was authorized in our area. Tons of my neighbors do it, but you never know. But when I got a random flyer from the county stating that any households taking in short term rental guests must pay them a tourist tax, I took this as a green light. You don’t tax something that’s illegal, right? Airbnb collect this tax from each guest on my behalf, and then pay it to the county (and another chunk to the state). So all seemed good on the legal front.Little did I realize, the City of St Pete was not getting a slice of the pie - and so it wasn’t as keen on the enterprise. About three months in, I received a citation for contravention of a zoning violation. It seems the City of St Pete has a local bylaw which states I’m not allowed to lease (or advertise the lease of) the property for ‘transient accommodation’ - for less than one month, more than 3 times per year. They gave me two weeks to comply, after which they would fine me $500 a day. Ouch…So how did this marry up with the fact that so many neighbours were doing it long term? When I checked on Airbnb, there were thousands of residential properties like mine listed. So why was I the only one in trouble?Firstly, after speaking to my neighbours, it seems the whole block was in trouble. Secondly, it seems the City was operating on a no harm no foul policy. So they would tolerate people offering Airbnb accommodation, as long as no other neighbours complained. Another neighbour called in the citation, because they were having trouble parking. But my guests weren’t taking up street parking - they had our driveway! Regardless, I shut down the listing. I kept my last two bookings because they were within the two week time frame for compliance. And so The Great Airbnb Experiment came to an end. Not with a bang but with a whimper.4. Whether buying another property purely for Airbnb rentals would be a good financial and time investmentThe citation issue answered this question pretty bluntly. If I can’t legally offer less than 30 day rentals, the Airbnb won’t work for me. But I’m not easily beaten. I have a cunning plan. I’m in the process of lobbying the City council to have this rule changed. It’s a pretty unpopular rule, and is directly opposed by the state legislature - who like the state tourist tax! It’s a long shot, but its definitely worth the effort. I’ll write about my progress with this campaign on here.What did I learnSize doesn’t matter.Most people don’t need room for six people (plus a baby). Our average was three guests per stay. Our 2000sqft home was more than people needed. Nobody needs a dining room, two lounges and an outdoor dining place for a weekend Airbnb stay. So we weren’t really setting ourselves apart from smaller houses/apartments / mother-in-law style accommodation. A smaller place is less to clean, less to manage, less to go wrong. And with a smaller mortgage. So if I was to buy a place specifically for Airbnb, I’d go for a smaller, cheaper place. It only needs two bedrooms max - a one bed would do for most guests, with a sofa bed in the lounge if needed.2. Get good helpAmy (my cleaner) was crucial in making the experiment work. Without her flexibility for when she was able to clean, the high standard she worked to, her willingness to take on extra duties as well, and the trust I have in her I don’t think the experiment would have worked. That said, if it was a long term project, I would want to have more than one cleaner on the books. If Amy was sick, or just didn’t feel like doing it any more, I would have been left stranded. I also paid very well. I think this showed my appreciation and made Amy feel it was worth her effort and commitment. Always pay good people well. They are very hard to come by.The futureNow that I have done the initial set up, it would be fairly easy to keep doing airbnb every time we are away on vacation. I know we are likely to be away over Christmas, so I will probably list it again then. We are allowed up two three short term rentals a year, so as long as I stick to that (or succeed in my campaign to change this law!) I should be ok. If I move out of the property I would probably let it as a long term rental, but I now know the property is marketable for short term rent, and so I can use Airbnb to fill void periods between tenants if needs be.If you have any experience of letting your own residence out on Airbnb, let me know how you got on in the comments below. Also, if you’ve ever ran a campaign to bring about a change I would be really interested in hearing tactics and techniques.Thanks for reading,Owen

The DRC, my country, has a rocket family, Troposphere, the “Congolese Rocket Family" established by Jean-Patrice Keka, also known as the African Eistein.Troposphere (rocket family) - WikipediaTroposphere is a Congolese rocket family first developed in 2007 at the private enterprise Développement Tous Azimuts (DTA). The project is managed by Jean-Patrice Keka Ohemba Okese, head of DTA, a graduate of the Institut Supérieur des Techniques Appliquées (ISTA). The program aimed at launching experimental rockets that would not exceed an altitude of 36 km.The launch site is located in an area owned by DTA at Menkao, 120 km East of Kinshasa.Fusée spatiale congolaise Troposphère 6…….Rocket scientists from the Africa south of the Africa will never receive the same prestige or publicity as their Western counterparts. The late Congolese Professor Pierre T. Kabamba was a well respected aerospace engineer at the University of Michigan. Two additional names come to mind : Siyabulela Xuza and Chakwuka Mbagwu.I still wonder why all these questions are constantly asked about Africa south of the Sahara. Did SSA have this or do this? There are space programs in several SSA countries. The DRC has had one since the 1970s.Africa leaps forward into space technologyA Brief History of the Congolese Space ProgramIn recent months, NASA has lamented the lack of minority students interested in majoring in science and engineering fields and has now partnered with the United Negro College Fund in order to encourage college-bound African-American students to consider a career in these under-represented disciplines. If astrobiology research seems like an insurmountable goal to some U.S. students, perhaps they’d be encouraged by the efforts of the dedicated group of workers and researchers that comprises the space program in the Democratic Republic of Congo. With limited resources and an even more limited cash supply, Congolese rocket enthusiasts have been launching Troposphere crafts with varying degrees of success since 2007.The idea of actually attempting space travel from Congo didn’t originate there, but rather with a West German company called Orbital Transport und Raketn Aktiengesellschaft (OTRAG). Founded in Stuttgart in 1975, OTRAG had a corporate vision of “space trucking,” or a “throwaway” method of transporting communication and other peaceful satellites into orbit at bargain-basement prices.The company had one major hurdle to overcome, however—mainly the amended 1954 Treaty of Brussels, which prohibited the development and launching of missiles on German soil. OTRAG made an unusual (and controversial at the time) agreement with President Mobutu Sese Seko of the Republic of Zaire in 1978 for the 25-year rental of a plot of land approximately the size of Indiana to serve as “the private Cape Canaveral of Africa.” The location was chosen partially for its proximity to the equator, but the willingness of a national leader to agree to a long-term lease for a large parcel of land also played a major part in Zaire’s selection.OTRAG-1, consisting of four propulsion modules, a nose cone, and four fins, was launched from Zaire on May 18, 1977, and achieved an altitude of 12 miles before the four engines broke off and OTRAG-1 plummeted back to Earth.