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JM Financial has reiterated that buy on Reliance Industries Limited with a target price of Rs 2,900 a share as it believes that net debt concerns are overdone, and also because RIL has industry-leading capabilities across businesses to drive robust 14-15 per cent EPS CAGR over the next 3-5 years.

Digital EBITDA was in line; ARPU and subscriber addition were a tad higher than expected, while retail business EBITDA was up 34 per cent YoY on continued strong store addition, the report said.

Reported consolidated PAT (after minority interest) was also 1 per cent above estimates at Rs 160 billion, though it was 6 per cent below consensus due to normalisation of tax rate to 25 per cent (PBT was in line with consensus).

The board approved a dividend of Rs 9/share for FY23 (vs. 8/share paid in FY22). Capex at Rs 396 billion in 1QFY24 continued to be high as expected due to 5G rollout; reported net debt was marginally higher QoQ at Rs 1,266 billion or 0.8x net debt to EBITDA (below the company’s guidance to maintain reported net debt to EBITDA below 1x).

Motilal Oswal Financial Services said in a report that RIL’s consolidated revenue declined 5 per cent YoY/3 per cent QoQ to Rs 2,075.6 billion.

The sharp decline in O2C segment (with 31 per cent drop in crude oil prices) was offset by continued growth in consumer business and increase in volumes from O2C and oil & gas businesses.

RJio’s revenue/EBITDA grew 3 per cent QoQ each led by 2 per cent subscriber additions and marginal increase in ARPU. Despite the aggressive 5G-led capex, network opex has remained under control during the quarter.

Reliance Retail posted healthy revenue/EBITDA growth of 21 per cent/34 per cent YoY (in line) led by all-round improvement, rising footfalls and growing digital business.

“We ascribe an equity valuation of Rs 750/share to RJio and Rs 1,500/share to Reliance Retail, factoring in the recent stake sale. We have further included an equity valuation of Rs 6/share pertaining to new energy on book value," the report said.