Would buy Lever rather than ITC: Phani Shekhar

ET Now spoke to Phani Shekhar, Fund Manager - PMS, Angel Broking, on his view on ITC as a buy.

What about ITC, at the current market price Rs 165 odd, is it a good value buy?

We would rather prefer a Lever as compared to ITC because ITC is just not a cigarettes business, it is a combination of so many businesses starting from paper to hotels to FMCG to cigarettes and out of this, only the cigarettes business has been generating the kind of return ratios that you would really be happy.

The FMCG business is going to take time and so are the other businesses, so we would rather like to buy a Lever, which we believe is much more comfortably placed on the valuations as compared to ITC. ITC will generate growth but Lever will be a better bet relatively.