Indraprastha Gas Limited

“IGL holds a legally unassailable CGD monopoly in India's largest urban gas market, but every metric that matters for a long-term compounder is moving in the wrong direction: operating margins have halved, ROCE is drifting toward cost-of-capital, incremental reinvestment returns have collapsed, and EV adoption poses a structural threat to the CNG volumes that generate most of its profit. At 14x P/E on declining earnings, the stock is roughly fairly valued for a utility — not cheap enough to compensate for the structural deterioration, and not a business that earns above-average returns on capital. Permanent capital loss is unlikely given the monopoly and zero debt, but slow ongoing value erosion is the base case. Expected 10-year total returns of 4–7% CAGR fall well short of what investors should demand for equity ownership.”