A handful of companies have announced their quarterly results, following which a host of brokerages either retained or updated their target prices on the stock. They include Indiamart Intermesh Ltd, L&T Finance Ltd, KEI Industries Ltd, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company and PNB Housing Finance.
Nuvama said KEI Industries consolidated revenues for Q3 came in-line while Ebitda and profit aft tax missed estimates by 5 per cent each, largely on account sharper than expected deceleration in EPS segment. The C&W segment revenues grew 26 per cent YoY and estimated volume growth comes in at 15-16 per cent YoY, with EBIT margins of 10.1 per cent. Cables revenue grew 25 per cent YoY with strong LT/HT growth of 30 per cent/54 per cent YoY, respectively. It values KEI Industries at 45 times on December 2026 EPS basis, with a December 2025 target price of Rs 5,250.
Emkay Global said IPRU Life reported a weak performance for 9MFY25, with VNB margin at 22.8 per cent, significantly lower than its estimate of 23.6 per cent.
"Growth spike in the Group fund management business and stronger growth in the ULIP segment in Q3 led to IPRU Life logging a weaker margin performance in Q3 and 9MFY25. The management stated that the group fund management business remains lumpy in nature, albeit profitable for the company. With focus on the protection and annuity lines of business, the management expects the growth trajectory to sustain, with continued investments in the proprietary channel," it said.
To bake in the Q3 developments, the brokerage tweaked its APE estimates slightly, while cutting its VNB Margin by 90-110bps. This resulted in a 4 per cent cut in VNB over FY25-27E.
"While growth remains robust, weaker margins drive the inferior RoEV profile. We reiterate ADD on the stock, with a revised down Dec-25E TP of Rs725, implying FY26E P/EV of 1.9x," it said. MOFSL retained 'Buy' on this stock with a target price of Rs 780. In the case of PNB Housing Finance Ltd, the HFC reported a 39 per cent a 39 per cent YoY rise in net profit for the December quarter, slightly beating the Street estimates, on the back of higher net interest income (NII) and lower provisions. Anlaysts said the December quarter disbursements grew strong at 30 per cent YoY, leading to tweaks in FY25 and FY26 estimates.
"We reiterate Buy with a target price of Rs 1,160 (based on 1.5 times Sep’26E BVPS). Key risks: a) inability to drive NIM expansion amid aggressive competition in mortgages, and b) subsequent seasoning in the affordable loan book leading to asset quality deterioration," Nirmal Bang said.
On Indiamart Intermesh, Centrum Broking said the company reported healthy financial performance for the quarter. However, the paid customer addition remains muted and is a matter of concern. It said the focus remains on driving higher paid customer addition in coming quarters, which have been impacted due to high churn in Silver monthly packages.
"We roll over to Sep’26E for valuation and maintain REDUCE Rating on the stock with revised target price of Rs 3,098 (vs Rs 3,154 earlier) at PE of 32x on Sep’26E EPS. We have reduced target PE multiple from 35x to 32x to account for reduced rate of addition of paid suppliers," it said.
L&T Finance Q3 profit fell 2 per cent YoY but beat the consensus estimate of due to lower credit cost. A larger portion of the MFI provisioning will now occur in Q4FY25 as opposed to the earlier guidance of equal drawdowns in Q3 and Q4, Nuvama said. It noted that the pre-provision operating profit was lower than expected in Q3 owing to a dip of 53 bps in NIM plus fee while opex rose sharply due to additions to the collections team and tech spend.
"With MFI credit cost a wait-and-watch till the April transition and lower NIM plus fee, near-term RoA shall trend lower than the aspired 2.8 per cent. The new tightening and improving customer profile will take 4–6 quarters to deliver results. We are cutting target BV to 1.6 times FY26E (from 1.9 times), yielding a target price of Rs 170 (earlier Rs 195); maintain ‘BUY’," it said.