Trent Share Price: Tata Group-backed retail company that owns Westside, Trent Ltd, witnessed a sharp decline of over Rs 200 or 4% on Monday, March 10. The bearish trend comes after Trent clarified an inadvertent error in updating the total count of Westside stores on its website. Following the blunder in the Westside stores figure, brokerage Kotak Institutional Equities has retained its REDUCE rating, while trimming its target price to Rs 5,150 from earlier Rs 5,550.

Trent Share Price:

After the market hours of March 10, Trent’s share price plunged by 3.95% or Rs 197.50 to close at Rs 4799.85 on BSE, with a market valuation of Rs 1,70,628.65 crore. The stock’s performance nosedived by at least Rs 211.3 or 4.2% during the trading session on Monday.

The stock’s 52-week high and low are around Rs 8,345.85 apiece and Rs 3,801.05 apiece respectively. While the stock has a high PE ratio of 90.32x, but also strong return on equity at 37.06%. YTD, the stock is down by 32%.

Notably, Trent’s all-time returns are a whopping 37,903.56%. The stock was once upon a time at Rs 12.63 on April 5, 1996. These gains are after the adjustment to the stock split.

Trent has carried only one stock split and that was in September 2016. The face value of Trent was split to Rs 1 with effect from September 12, 2016, and hence the ratio was around 1:10.

While Trent has not delivered any bonus shares, it holds a strong record of hefty dividend payout. Since August 2003, the company delivered about 24 dividends, as per Trendlyne data. In the past 12 months, the company paid about Rs 3.20 dividends per share.

TRENT Westside Stores Error:

Last week, TRENT clarified that there was an inadvertent error in updating the total count of Westside stores on its website www.westside.com store locator page.

It added, “We confirm that as on date there are 240 operational Westside stores. The status on the website has been duly updated.”

Kotak Institutional Equities On Trent:

According to Kotak, Trent’s stock was volatile last week on account of an exaggerated store count of 269 seen on its website on the store locator. This was subsequently revised down to 240, implying net addition of 8 Westside stores YTD.

It added, “We model a period-ending store count of 243, implying a net addition of 11 in FY2025, lower than the 26/14/18 net additions in FY2022/23/24. We believe that Trent is investing in larger-sized stores with more merchandise categories and better customer experience and has hence shut stores in FY2025. We expect this to normalize and model 18/22 new store additions in FY2026/27.”

Further, Kotak’s note added, that typically, larger-sized stores take longer to mature and report lower throughputs than smaller stores. Trent has shut 21 Westside stores in 9MFY25 and replaced these with larger stores. This is evident in the average store area of Westside increasing to ~21k sq. ft as of 3QFY25 from ~19k sq. ft as of 3QFY24.

Kotak believes this resulted in a relatively subdued revenue throughput increase of 2% yoy for Westside and may remain a drag going forward as well.

On the valuation, Kotak said, “We trim our revenue throughput assumptions for Westside for FY2026/27, resulting in a ~0.3-1.0% revenue cut for Trent (standalone). The revenue cut impacts margins and drives a higher 1-5% EPS cut. Trent still remains the best-executing retail company within our coverage, though these positives seem baked into the stock price. Retain REDUCE with a revised FV of Rs 5,150 (Rs5,550 earlier).”

As per the financial report of Q3FY25, the company opened 14 Westside and 62 Zudio stores (including 1 in Dubai) across 46 cities and consolidated 2 Westside and 4 Zudio stores. As of 31st December, its store portfolio included 238 Westside, 635 Zudio and 34 stores across other lifestyle concepts.

About Trent Ltd:

Trent Limited is part of the Tata Group and operates a portfolio of retail concepts. The primary customer propositions of Trent include Westside, one of India’s leading chains of fashion retail stores, Zudio, a one-stop destination for great fashion at great value and Star, which operates in the competitive food, grocery and daily needs segment.

Westside stores have a footprint of predominantly between 20,000 to 30,000 sq. ft. across 81 cities. Westside stocks a broad range of products ranging from apparel, footwear, and accessories to cosmetics and perfumes to home accessories and gifts amongst others. Each Westside store presents an international shopping ambience, superior merchandise at affordable prices and excellent service.