Should you start preferring Swiggy over Zomato now? Deepak Shenoy answers

Deepak Shenoy, Founder, Capital Mind, says Swiggy is an exciting play and you want to give this company at least two quarters of announcing results. Although you probably have used them as a customer, they have not been seen as much as an investor. After two quarters, the six-month holding period will also be over. We will be able to appreciate how much liquidity is in the stock and how much more news comes around, and that is when one can make longer-term bets on the stocks.

The Swiggy stock post its listing, was a bit quiet. But from there, it has picked up quite a bit. It is now closer to Rs 500 a piece. It comes out with its Q2 earnings tomorrow. Would you recommend staying with the so-called leader of the pack Zomato at the moment or do you still see value as far as Swiggy is concerned?

Deepak Shenoy: Swiggy is cheaper. You are getting a much lower-priced company in terms of multiples in whichever way you analyze the company. But there will be some issues. For instance, Swiggy will have a lot of the overhang that Zomato has probably already passed through, which is the stock option-based compensation. These non-cash losses will be visible on the balance sheet because some options have been granted to the top shareholders of Swiggy or top management of Swiggy, which will cause some negative on the numbers, at least the headline numbers for a while, so that will be a negative for a short time.

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