The Hindu Business Line : aurionPro Solutions: Avoid

INVESTORS could avoid the book-built public offer of aurionPro Solutions made at a price band of Rs 81-90 per share. Even at a lower end of the price band, the IPO is stiffly priced at a price -earnings multiple of 23 times its FY 05 earnings. The pricing may not leave adequate scope for capital appreciation in the medium term. Since aurionPro is expected to focus primarily on the products market for the banking segment, the flight to scale and intense competition in this space will be the principal challenges to growth. Over the past year, scale, size and reach have emerged as the key variables dictating growth in the banking products segment. The services business of aurionPro is aimed at complementing its product portfolio.

The recent acquisition of the Citigroup's equity stake by Oracle in i-flex solutions has raised the competitive bar and heralds the consolidation phase in the banking products space. Some of the mid /small-sized product players that are focussed on niches and competing with the likes of aurion have broad-based their products portfolio to focus on insurance, mutual funds and even ERP solutions to bring in greater predictability to their revenue stream. Moreover, the longer sales cycle (from the start to the closure of a product deal) and higher selling and marketing expenses, especially in penetrating the developed markets, such as the US, leave smaller - sized players more vulnerable to fluctuations in revenue and earnings stream.

aurionPro is coming out with this public offer to raise Rs 24-27 crores primarily to expand its facilities at a cost of Rs 7.8 crores, establish overseas offices at Rs 3.5 crore and finance an incremental working capital of Rs 4.2 crore. The remaining proceeds after public issue expenses are met will be retained for acquisitions. To part finance the project, the company has made a private placement of shares at Rs 150 per share with certain investors to the tune of Rs 3.14 crore.

On the products side, aurionPro is focussed on developing products in the area of cash management, treasury and risk management space for the domestic and overseas markets. It is also engaged in providing customised IT services and support to its clients in the banking arena. The consolidated revenues as of March 31, 2005 stood at Rs. 10.4 crore, with post-tax earnings of Rs 2.7 crore, with a significant jump in revenues in the latest financial year. It has 190 employees as of August 30, 2005.

Given the small revenue base, the scope for growth will be fairly high over the next year or so. However, considering the relative size of the company and its nascent presence in the developed markets, the ability of aurionPro to scale and establish its presence in these markets will present a serious challenge over the medium term. Besides, aurionPro's relatively niche focus on banking products may also pose a challenge as this market is moving away from the best-of-breed solutions towards an integrated solutions market with established global players. This is poised to increase the scope for vendor consolidation and open up greater opportunities for large product vendors to scale-up within banking clients in a modular fashion. Finally, the competition among niche vendors focussed on key areas such as cash management, treasury and risk management has also been growing in the past few years. This is likely to place pressure on margins in the coming years.

The book-built IPO opened on September 27 and closes on October 4. The stock is to be listed at NSE and BSE. The lead managers to this offer are Centrum Capital and Karvy Investor Services.

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