'Buy' Axis Bank Maintains ICICI Securities On Attractive Valuations

Stocks To Buy: ICICI Securities reckons, Axis Bank is a key beneficiary of the easing liquidity and peaking unsecured stress.

ICICI Securities maintains Buy given Axis Bank 's attractive valuations of ~1.45x FY27 core banking book.

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Overall, Axis Bank is likely to be a key beneficiary of easing liquidity and peaking systemic stress in unsecured retail. The brokerage's estimates are broadly unchanged. It sees a soft H1 FY26 due to pressure in net interest margin and frontloaded credit costs, but a potentially healthy improvement in H2 FY26. As against the muted EPS growth in FY26, ICICI Securities sees strong double-digits growth for FY27E led by a NIM uptick and easing credit costs.

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ICICI Securities Report

Axis Bank Ltd.'s stock has seen derating in the last ~12 months due to softer than systemic deposits/loan growth, relatively higher stress in unsecured retail and senior personnel exits. Slower deposits growth could be partly attributed to preferring quality (run-off rate) and keeping a tight leash on funding costs.

The NTB acquisition has been healthy, though Axis needs to step-up deepening on ETB deposits, in our view.

Relative to peers, the bank has delivered soft loan growth, though net interest income growth outcomes (FY25 growth of 9% YoY) have been similar to peers, suggesting sharper focus on profitable growth.

We appreciate Axis Bank’s focus on RaRoC-driven growth approach. That said, sharper focus on home loans, where it has been losing market share, should also be important to the bank, in our view.

Click on the attachment to read the full report:

ICICI Securities Axis Bank Company Update.pdf
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Also Read: Stocks To Buy: Motilal Oswal Recommends Top 16 Stocks In BFSI Sector; HDFC Bank, Nuvama Among The List

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