Capital Trust Limited

Financial Services — Credit Services · NSE

₹21.66−₹0.10 (−0.46%)

DalalBaazaar Score

42 / 100

🟡 Moderate

Verdict

CAUTION

Risk

High

Driven by the company is currently loss-making, micro-cap size, which brings thin liquidity, falling profits.

In simple words: The company is currently losing money, though profits are falling even as sales grow. The direction of profits is the main factor to watch.

Decision support, not a buy or sell call.

As of 18 Oct 2026, 6:58 pm

Understanding the Business

Company site ↗

The 60-second version of Capital Trust Limited — what it does, how it earns, and who it competes with, before any of the numbers below.

What does this company do?

Capital Trust Limited, a non-banking finance company, provides structured business loans to shopkeepers and traders in India. It also offers secured and unsecured capital business loans; and gold loans. The company was incorporated in 1985 and is based in New Delhi, India.

IndustryCredit Services

SectorFinancial Services

Employees976

Annual revenue₹32 Cr

How does it make money?

Turns over ₹32 Cr a year. Of every ₹100 of sales, about ₹-147 reaches shareholders as profit, with ₹-77 left at the operating level before interest, tax and depreciation. Each of its 976 employees supports ₹3.3 lakh of revenue a year, the signature of a people-led business.

Revenue / employee₹3.3 lakh

Who are its competitors?

The closest listed comparisons in its industry are BAJAJ FINANCE LIMITED, STATE BANK OF INDIA, HDFC BANK LTD, ICICI BANK LTD.. These are the companies its valuation and returns are measured against elsewhere in this report.

Compared side by side in Peers ↓

What is its competitive advantage?Not assessable from these ratios

For a lender, returns on capital are shaped by leverage and funding cost rather than by pricing power, so the usual financial signature of an advantage does not apply. Judge this one on deposit franchise, cost of funds and asset quality — none of which are in this data.

Peer median ROE16.5%

What has been driving growth?

Profit has moved mainly because margins changed, not because the business sold much more. Over 3 years revenue moved -51% while net margin moved +108% relative to itself. What this cannot tell you is which products, customers or geographies did the work — that lives in the segment disclosures of the annual report.

Revenue effect-51%

Margin effect+108%

DalalBaazaar Score

42/ 100

Moderate

Weighted across six categories. Every point is explained below.

✗ Revenue has contracted at 21.0% a year
✗ Profit fell 4315.0% in the latest year

Quality vs. Valuation

Company Quality

40/ 100

Weak

How good the business is, ignoring the share price entirely.

Valuation

36/ 100

Expensive

What you are being asked to pay, ignoring how good the business is.

Weak on business quality and not cheap enough to compensate.

vs. its own history

Not enough price and earnings history

vs. sector peers

Not enough peers with a usable P/E

vs. generic bands

N/A

No P/E — the company is lossmaking

EV/EBITDA

—

PEG

—

What's Good / What's Bad

🟢 What's Going Well1

Return on capital is rising
ROCE has improved from -57.5% to -43.8%.

🔴 What Needs Attention1

Return on equity is falling
ROE has dropped from -61.2% to -76.2% — each rupee of shareholder capital earns less than it did.

Red Flags

5 items require attention · 3 high · 2 watch

🔴Thin interest coverageFinancial
Operating profit covers interest only -27.7x — little room if earnings dip.
🔴The company is lossmakingFinancial
Net profit of -₹47 Cr in the latest reported year.
🔴Significant margin compressionFinancial
EBITDA margin has fallen 69.3 points, from -8.1% to -77.5%.
🟡Interest coverage is deterioratingFinancial
Cover has fallen from 1.6x to -27.7x.
🟡Shareholders have been dilutedOwnership
Shares outstanding are up 103% over 3 years — each existing share owns a smaller slice of the company.

Investment Thesis

🟢 Bull CaseWhat could make this work?

No clear supporting case emerges from the available numbers.

🔴 Bear CaseWhat could go wrong?

Margins are being competed away
EBITDA margin has fallen from -8.1% to -77.5%. If the trend continues, profit falls even on flat sales — and margin decline rarely reverses quickly.
Returns on shareholder capital are falling
ROE has dropped from -61.2% to -76.2%. Each rupee of equity earns less than it did, so profit growth increasingly depends on raising more capital rather than on the existing base working harder.
Earnings are hard to forecast
Profit has swung sharply from year to year, so any single year — good or bad — is a weak guide to the next. Cyclical earnings deserve lower multiples for that reason.
Size brings its own risk
Micro Cap businesses are thinly traded, so exits are harder in a falling market and single events move the price more than they would for a larger company.
Several serious flags at once
3 high-severity checks triggered. Individually each has an explanation; together they raise the chance that something structural is wrong rather than a one-off.

🟡 Key Things to WatchMeasurable tripwires, set against where this company stands today

1EBITDA margin holds above -79%✓ -77.5%
Two points below today's level — enough room for noise, tight enough to catch real compression.
2Return on equity stays above 8%✗ -76.2%
For a lender this is the cleanest single read on whether the book is being grown profitably.
3Interest cover stays above 3x✗ -27.7x
How much operating profit can fall before interest stops being comfortably covered.

Investment Checklist

7 / 11 checks passed

✗ Strong return on equity (ROE ≥ 15%)
✗ Strong return on capital employed (ROCE ≥ 15%)
✗ Healthy net margin (≥ 10%)
✓ Generates positive free cash flow
✓ Manageable leverage (Debt/Equity < 1.0)
✓ Adequate short-term liquidity (Current Ratio ≥ 1.0)
✓ Revenue growing year-over-year
✗ Profit growing year-over-year
✓ Not trading at an extreme valuation (P/E < 40x)
✓ Not buying right at the 52-week high
✓ Short-term technical trend isn't bearish

Price history

Quick Metrics

3 good · 3 neutral · 5 weak

Market Cap

₹73 Cr

Micro Cap

Smaller company — thin liquidity and deep drawdowns are normal here

P/E (Trailing)

Not meaningful

Loss-making

Earnings are negative, so a P/E multiple can't be read here

P/B Ratio

1.20x

Reasonable

Reasonable against the company's book value

EPS (TTM)

₹-13.12

Loss-making

Negative earnings per share — the business is losing money

ROE

-76.2%

Weak

Weak capital efficiency

ROCE

-43.8%

Weak

Low return on total capital employed

Debt/Equity

0.65x

Moderate

Moderate leverage

Revenue Growth (YoY)

55.8%

Healthy

Healthy top-line growth

Profit Growth (YoY)

-4315.0%

Falling

Profits are shrinking

Dividend Yield

None

No dividend yield reported — usually means no payout, but verify if one was recently initiated

Free Cash Flow

₹27 Cr

Cash generative

Generates cash even after funding its capex

More Metrics

Operating Margin

2.7%

Weak

Thin margins leave little room for error

Net Margin

-173.8%

Weak

Very little revenue reaches the bottom line

Current Ratio

1.66

Comfortable

Healthy short-term liquidity

Beta (vs Nifty)

0.39

Defensive

Steadier than the market

52W Range Position

57%

Mid-range

Technical Snapshot

SMA 20 / SMA 50

20.5 / 20.0

Bullish alignment (short > long)

Price vs SMA 200

Above

Long-term uptrend

RSI (14)

66.3

Neutral momentum

Financial Trend (4-Year)

Metric	FY23	FY24	FY25	FY26	3Y CAGR
Revenue	₹65 Cr	₹77 Cr	₹84 Cr	₹32 Cr	-21.0%
EBITDA	-₹5 Cr	-₹10 Cr	₹2 Cr	-₹25 Cr	—
EBITDA Margin	-8.1%	-12.5%	1.8%	-77.5%	—
PAT (Net Profit)	-₹46 Cr	₹2 Cr	₹1 Cr	-₹47 Cr	—
EPS	₹-27.34	₹1.28	₹0.55	₹-18.4	—
ROE	-61.2%	2.8%	1.3%	-76.2%	—
ROCE	-57.5%	4.8%	4.2%	-43.8%	—
Total Debt	₹96 Cr	₹80 Cr	₹102 Cr	₹40 Cr	-25.2%
Free Cash Flow	₹74 Cr	₹20 Cr	-₹20 Cr	₹27 Cr	-28.7%

🔴 Revenue has shrunk at 21.0% a year over 3 years.

🔴 EBITDA Margin has fallen from -8.1% to -77.5% over 3 years (-69.3 pts).

🔴 ROE has fallen from -61.2% to -76.2% over 3 years (-14.9 pts).

🟢 ROCE has risen from -57.5% to -43.8% over 3 years (+13.6 pts).

🟢 Total Debt has shrunk at 25.2% a year over 3 years.

🔴 Free Cash Flow has shrunk at 28.7% a year over 3 years.

Balance Sheet & Cash Flow — FY2026

Total Assets

₹112 Cr

Total Liabilities

₹50 Cr

Cash & Equivalents

₹2 Cr

Operating Cash Flow

₹28 Cr

Capex

-₹1 Cr

Shareholding (proxy)

Institutional Holding

0.0%

Insider Holding

69.5%

Corporate Actions

Ex-Dividend Date

20 Sept 2019

Peer Comparison

Company	P/E	ROE
BAJAJ FINANCE LIMITED	30.2x	17.8%
STATE BANK OF INDIA	10.3x	15.2%
HDFC BANK LTD	15.9x	13.8%
ICICI BANK LTD.	18.1x	16.5%

Recent News

6 general

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Simply Wall Street, 16 Oct

First Capital Real Estate Investment Trust (FCR-UN.TO) Stock Price, News, Quote & History

Yahoo! Finance Canada, 18 Oct

Crinage joins Polar Capital Trust as stock sits 16.56 percent below high

ad-hoc-news.de, 15 Oct

Capital Trust Ltd Share Price: Buy or Sell

Univest, 11 Sept

8 Best Index Funds to Buy in October 2026

The Motley Fool, 16 Oct

Capital Trust scales gold and secured secured loan AUM to ₹35 Cr with AI-driven controls

scanx.trade, 05 Oct

Watch Items

This is a financial-sector business: borrowing is its raw material, not leverage in the usual sense. Debt/Equity and ROCE here aren't comparable to a manufacturer's — read them alongside NIM, GNPA and capital adequacy from the company's own disclosures.
Cross-check against the company's latest quarterly filing / investor presentation before acting.

DalalBaazaar Thesis

StrongFinancial Health

MiddlingValuation

WeakBusiness Quality · Growth · Profitability · Risk

Points for each in the Score ↑

Weak on the fundamentals

Poor scores on business quality without a price low enough to compensate. There is no obvious argument for owning this over a stronger company at a similar valuation. 3 high-severity red flags sit above this conclusion and should be read first.

2 of 3 tripwires tripped — Return on equity stays above 8%; Interest cover stays above 3x · see Key things to watch ↑