Nomura cuts target price of this AI, data centre beneficiary company. Here’s why

Shares of Anant Raj dipped about 1% to Rs 517 on the BSE on Wednesday after foreign brokerage Nomura lowered its target price to Rs 650 from Rs 700, while maintaining its Buy rating. The revised target implies an upside potential of 22.2%.

The brokerage has cut its FY27 and FY28 earnings estimates by 8% and 10%, respectively, citing a slower-than-expected ramp-up in cloud capacity and delays in the launch of residential projects that were earlier expected in FY26.

Nomura has also moderated its assumptions on annual cloud capacity addition to 3MW from 4MW earlier and now expects cloud to account for 10-11% of the business mix, compared with its previous estimate of 13-14%. Management guidance stands at a 25% cloud mix.

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Improvement from Q2FY27

According to the brokerage, visibility on revenue from the cloud segment is expected to improve from the second quarter of FY27 as rentals from the company’s new 1.5MW cloud capacity begin contributing.

Anant Raj’s data centre rental revenue stood at Rs 74 crore in the March quarter, up from Rs 17 crore a year ago and Rs 44 crore in the December quarter. On an annualised basis, the March-quarter run rate implies data centre rental revenue of Rs 296 crore for FY27, compared with Rs 176 crore in FY26.

The company currently operates 0.5MW of cloud capacity and expects the additional 1.5MW to start generating revenue from the second quarter of FY27, compared with earlier expectations of commissioning by the end of FY26. Management indicated that cloud infrastructure testing and customer handovers typically take four to six months before rentals begin. Given that 1MW of cloud capacity can generate around Rs 150 crore of annual rental revenue, Nomura estimates that the new capacity could contribute an additional Rs 170 crore over nine months, taking FY27 data centre rental revenue to Rs 580-600 crore, versus its earlier estimate of Rs 700 crore.Read more: US remains global leader in AI, but China rapidly closing gap with cheaper models: JP Morgan

Residential push

On the residential side, Nomura expects the company’s luxury Group Housing 2 project to be launched in the second quarter of FY27. The project, with a saleable area of 0.90 million sq ft, has received licences and other approvals, while RERA approval is expected by the end of the first quarter of FY27. The brokerage also highlighted that the licence for Group Housing 3 in Sector 63A, Gurugram, spanning 6.38 acres with a tentative saleable area of about 1.20 million sq ft, is at an advanced stage.

The brokerage noted that Anant Raj’s data centre expansion remains on track. Brownfield construction at the Manesar and Rai facilities is progressing as planned, with the company targeting data centre IT capacity of 63MW by the end of FY27, up from 28MW currently. Of the upcoming capacity, management expects 3-4MW to be allocated to cloud infrastructure.

Nomura estimates FY27 capital expenditure at Rs 1,000-1,500 crore, depending on cloud-related investments. The company ended FY26 with Rs 900 crore in cash, while the brokerage expects the data centre segment to generate EBITDA of Rs 400-500 crore in FY27. It also estimates that the residential business could generate more than Rs 2,500 crore of free cash flow from ongoing projects. Based on these factors, Nomura believes the company is adequately funded to pursue growth in both its data centre and residential businesses simultaneously.

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