JM Financial recommends ICICI Lombard, Balrampur Chini shares

New Delhi, March 25

Brokerage house JM Financial has recommended investors to 'buy' shares of ICICI Lombard and Balrampur Chini Mills.

For general insurance company ICICI Lombard, the brokerage house has set a target price at Rs 1,600, against its current price of Rs 1,254.

"ICICI Lombard showcased its Digital Initiatives and underscored how it has been progressing on the journey of digitization, encompassing various stakeholders viz., customers, channel partners and employees," the brokerage said in a note.

Take Care app for serving customers with key functionalities such as quick and easy claim process, online policy renewal, access to cashless hospitals network and other features to enhance customer engagements would propel monetization opportunities for the insurer, it added.

"They aspire to be positioned on services (offerings), and do not play on pricing, hence they have premium pricing vs. peers. Similarly, they have not been aggressively working with aggregators as they want to 'own the customer' to create sustainable value for the organization."

For sugar manufacturer Balrampur Chini Mills, the target price is set at Rs 530, as against its current price of Rs 476.

"(The company's) expansion programme is tracking well Aand it continues to focus on the cane development program to improve the area /yield/quality of sugarcane," it added.

The government's aggressive focus on ethanol blending program augurs well for large players like Balrampur Chini Mills to raise their capacities.