Altman Z″
Needs current assets and current liabilities.
HDFCBANK · Regional Banks · INE040A01034
Analyst mean 1.51 · 39 analysts · 64% bullishThis is a lending business. Cash-flow reads that suit a manufacturer do not apply: disbursing loans is an operating outflow, so negative operating cash is normal and not a warning sign. Leverage is the raw material of the model, not a red flag on its own. Reads that would mislead here have been withheld rather than shown with a caveat.
A plain-language read of the business, how it actually earns, where the edge is, and the economics of every reported segment — taken from the annual report and investor presentation, not a one-line industry label.
Numbered markers are corporate actions and, once the filings are read, capital and governance events. Prices are split-adjusted so the series is continuous.
The three to six things that actually matter about this company, each with the exact filing and note it came from — never a fact without the context that makes it meaningful.
What the numbers mean when read together — computed from the filings, not a score.
Other income is 132% of pre-tax profit — a large share of the profit comes from outside the core operating business.
Why this reading: Noted with caution — worth watching, but not yet conclusive on its own. Business has ups and downs; one soft reading is not a verdict.
Trailing other income ₹143,699 cr against pre-tax profit ₹108,485 cr. High other-income dependence means the headline profit is flattered by treasury, one-offs, or non-operating items rather than the core business.
Both revenue and profit grew over the last year (2.8% and 12.5%) — growth is translating to the bottom line.
Why this reading: A positive signal in the numbers, shown for balance alongside the concerns.
Trailing revenue ₹351,818 cr, trailing profit ₹82,512 cr. Profit growing at least as fast as revenue indicates operating leverage or pricing power.
ROE of 34.7% breaks into a 23.1% net margin, 0.18x asset turnover, and 8.37x leverage.
Why this reading: Surfaced for context, not as a concern — it only becomes meaningful if it persists or pairs with other signals.
ROE 34.7% = net margin 23.1% × asset turnover 0.18x × equity multiplier 8.37x. Reading ROE through its three drivers shows whether returns are built on pricing power (margin), capital efficiency (turnover), or borrowing (leverage).
Every score below is calculated here from the reported numbers — none of it is asserted. Open the notebook at the foot of the section to see each formula with this company's figures in it.
Needs current assets and current liabilities.
Piotroski F-Score — fundamental momentum — Joseph Piotroski, University of Chicago, 2000, in a study of whether accounting signals could improve returns among cheap stocks.
Nine yes-or-no tests across profitability, leverage and operating efficiency. Each pass scores one. It asks a narrow question: is this business getting better or worse on its own terms, year over year?
How to read it7 or more suggests improving fundamentals; 3 or fewer suggests deterioration. It measures direction, not quality — a weak company improving can score higher than a strong one holding steady.
Where it failsA single year of comparison, so one unusual year distorts it. Says nothing about valuation, competitive position or management. Piotroski designed it to rank already-cheap stocks, not to judge a company in isolation.
Needs trade receivables, current assets, other expenses, borrowings.
Accruals are -0.7% of assets. Free cash flow negative in 5 of 12 years.
DuPont decomposition — Devised inside the DuPont Corporation in the 1920s and still the standard way to read a return on equity.
Splits return on equity into its three sources, so the same headline number can be traced to very different businesses.
How to read itA 20% ROE built on margin and turnover is a different proposition from a 20% ROE built on 3× leverage. The first survives a downturn; the second amplifies it.
Where it failsA single year. Negative equity makes it meaningless. Leverage is structural for lenders, so the third term carries no signal there.
Revenue grew faster than the capital behind it, which is what operating leverage looks like: the existing asset base is working harder.
cumulative operating cash flow ÷ cumulative net profit
₹210,186 cr ÷ ₹441,406 cr, over 12 years
0.48×
Below 1.0 and persistent means profit is being recognised before the cash arrives.(net profit − operating cash flow) ÷ average total assets
(₹79,219 − ₹113,506) cr ÷ average assets
-0.7%
Negative means cash exceeded profit — the healthier reading. Positive above ~10% is where accruals start to dominate earnings.net margin × asset turnover × leverage
22.7% × 0.07 × 8.37
13.5%
Splits ROE into whether returns come from operations or from borrowing.EBIT ÷ finance cost
₹287,632 cr ÷ ₹185,491 cr
1.55×
How many times operating profit covers the interest bill.growth in fixed assets + CWIP, against growth in revenue
capital +96% vs revenue +104%, FY2023 to FY2026
-9pp gap
Money going in far faster than revenue coming out. For an incubator this is expected — the test is whether it eventually converts.Needs more balance-sheet detail (only 3 of 6 flags testable).
Read downward. Cash can cover EBITDA and still not survive capex — the third rung is where a capital-hungry business shows itself.
The earnings quality ladder — Not a named model — the standard sequence an analyst walks when testing whether reported profit is real.
Three ratios read in order, each stricter than the last.
How to read itRead downward. Each rung failing where the one above passed tells you exactly where the cash is going.
Where it failsA single year of heavy capex depresses the third rung legitimately. Judge it across a cycle.
The growth rate that makes today's market value equal the discounted cash flows, at a 11.5% discount rate and 4.0% terminal growth. Not a forecast — the arithmetic of what is already in the price. Compare it with what the business has actually delivered.
Reverse DCF — the growth already in the price — A standard inversion of discounted cash flow, used to avoid the forecasting problem entirely.
Instead of forecasting cash flows and deriving a value, it takes today's market value as given and solves for the growth rate that would justify it. The output is not a view — it is the arithmetic of what the market is currently assuming.
How to read itCompare it with what the business has actually delivered. A price implying 30% a year against a decade of 15% is a demanding assumption; the reverse is a modest one.
Where it failsUseless when free cash flow is negative or unusually depressed, which is common mid-capex. Highly sensitive to the discount rate — a point either way moves the answer materially.
Each framework below is a set of stated, mechanical criteria from published work, run against this company's own filed numbers. Passing or failing a screen is not a verdict — different frameworks disagree by design, and that disagreement is itself informative.
Benjamin Graham's stated criteria for a defensive stock, applied to the filed numbers. A company failing several is not disqualified — Graham designed these to be deliberately strict.
Two ratios only: what the business earns on its capital, and what you pay for those earnings. Designed to be ranked across a universe rather than read in isolation.
The fundamental half of William O'Neil's framework. The market and leadership components are judgement calls and are not scored here.
The characteristics long-term holders commonly look for: cash-backed earnings, high returns on capital, and debt that never forces a decision.
Bars are revenue; the line is net margin. Revenue rising while the line falls is the shape worth noticing.
Operating cash first, then what the business spent and raised.
One year is a snapshot. These are the two lines that matter across a cycle.
Set your own assumptions and watch the numbers move. A scenario calculator — the outputs are the arithmetic of your inputs.
One canonical set of figures — the same numbers used everywhere else on this page and on the screener.
How the register has moved over recent quarters — the direction matters more than the level.
Promoter held steady from 25.64% to 25.52% across these quarters.
FII trimmed from 48.37% to 41.82% across these quarters.
MF rose from 26.02% to 30.62% across these quarters.
Other rose from 25.61% to 27.56% across these quarters.
Where cash gets stuck. A rising inventory or debtor line against flat sales is the earliest sign of trouble in the numbers.
| Measure | FY2019 | FY2020 | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|
The shape of the business over time (annual) — read the direction, not the single print.
| Line | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue from operations | 128,552 | 135,936 | 170,754 | 283,649 | 336,367 | 348,615 |
| Other income | 27,333 | 31,759 | 33,912 | 124,346 | 134,548 | 146,848 |
| Depreciation | 1,385 | 1,681 | 2,345 | 3,092 | 3,805 | 4,195 |
| Finance cost | 59,248 | 58,584 | 77,780 | 154,139 | 183,894 | 185,491 |
| Profit before tax | 42,796 | 50,873 | 61,498 | 76,569 | 96,242 | 102,141 |
| Net profit (owners) | 31,857 | 38,151 | 46,149 | 65,446 | 73,440 | 79,219 |
| EPS (₹) | 28.87 | 34.31 | 41.22 | 42.16 | 46.26 | 49.39 |
Exceptional items, total income and EBITDA are read from the filed statements.
| Metric | Sep 2024 | Dec 2024 | Mar 2025 | Jun 2025 | Sep 2025 | Dec 2025 | Mar 2026 | Jun 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 83,002 | 85,040 | 86,779 | 87,372 | 86,994 | 87,067 | 87,182 | 90,575 |
| Expenses | 52,074 | 41,307 | 47,709 | 64,497 | 45,161 | 54,145 | 44,028 | 58,292 |
| Other Income | 38,455 | 27,154 | 33,489 | 45,683 | 31,567 | 39,860 | 29,737 | 42,535 |
| Depreciation | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Profit before tax | 23,968 | 23,973 | 25,573 | 20,850 | 26,659 | 26,961 | 27,672 | 27,193 |
| Net Profit | 18,627 | 18,340 | 19,285 | 17,090 | 20,364 | 20,691 | 21,074 | 20,383 |
| EPS | 11.68 | 11.54 | 12.31 | 10.60 | 12.76 | 12.87 | 13.22 | 12.50 |
| Item | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity Capital | 551 | 555 | 558 | 760 | 765 | 1,539 |
| Reserves | 209,259 | 246,772 | 288,880 | 455,636 | 521,024 | 584,520 |
| Borrowings | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Fixed Assets | 5,248 | 6,432 | 8,431 | 12,604 | 15,258 | 16,492 |
| CWIP | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Investments | 438,823 | 449,264 | 511,582 | 1,005,682 | 1,186,473 | 1,280,216 |
| Total Assets | 1,799,507 | 2,122,934 | 2,530,432 | 4,030,194 | 4,392,110 | 4,907,701 |
| Line | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash from operations | 42,476 | -11,960 | 20,814 | 19,069 | 127,242 | 113,506 |
| Cash from investing | -1,823 | -2,051 | -2,992 | 16,600 | -3,651 | 7,477 |
| Cash from financing | -7,321 | 48,124 | 23,941 | -3,983 | -102,478 | -59,005 |
| Free cash flow | 40,796 | -14,176 | 17,390 | 14,882 | 123,267 | 110,144 |
| Net change in cash | 33,332 | 34,113 | 41,762 | 31,687 | 21,113 | 61,978 |
Cash from operations is the number profit has to answer to. Free cash flow is what remains after the business pays for its own growth.
The part no one reads: the auditor's opinion, the contingent liabilities buried in the notes, the covenants, and the claims in the deck placed beside the figures that test them.
Where analysts pressed management on the earnings call, and exactly how management answered — the questions that were hardest to answer are usually the ones that matter.
Each score is built from disclosed evidence against a fixed rubric. Open a card to see exactly which tests passed and which did not — a score you cannot audit is worth nothing.
The same read, applied to the companies this one competes with.