Phoenix Mills tanks 8% as nearly 11% equity changes hands via block deal

Shares of The Phoenix Mills slumped 8.3 per cent to quote at Rs 665 on the BSE on Tuesday after nearly 1.65 crore shares, representing about 11 per cent of the company's equity, changed hands on the counter on the BSE till 9:20 am. 

By 9:40 am, a combined 2.44 crore shares had changed hands on the counter on NSE and BSE. The names of the buyers and sellers could not be ascertained immediately. Media reports, however, suggested that promoter group may have off-loaded part stake.

The real estate developer had on August 22 raised Rs 1,100 crore via its Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP). Phoenix Mills allotted 74.38 lakh shares (or 40.91 per cent of the total shares offered in the issue) to Government of Singapore, 12.39 lakh shares (or 6.82 per cent of the total shares offered in the issue) to ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, 12.39 lakh shares (or 6.82 per cent of the total shares offered in the issue) to SBI Mutual Fund and 9.39 lakh shares (or 5.17 per cent of the total shares offered in the issue) to Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund  

Consequently, the Government of Singapore holds 4.3 per cent stake in the company, MFs cumulatively hold 12.61 per cent stake, Schroder International Selection Fund Emerging Asia hold 2.84 per cent stake, as per shareholding pattern data released on Saturday, August 22.

For the June quarter of FY21, the company had posted a net loss of Rs 52 crore, as against net profit of Rs 153.71 crore reported in Q1FY20. Its revenue from operations stood at Rs 134,7 crore, down from Rs 615.04 crore in the year-ago quarter.

ICICI Securities believes PML remains a quasi play on India’s consumption story, notwithstanding a steep impact on retail & hospitality portfolio in FY21, given the quality of assets, healthy balance sheet & strategic expansion plans.

According to analysts at HDFC Institutional Equities, Covid-19 outbreak has hit the retail malls sector hard, both globally and locally.

"While, in the near term, this has led to asset values correcting 35-40 per cent with concerns on survival of the modern-day consumption format, we believe we are a vaccine away from normalcy, and it will be a hard road over the next 12-15 months. For well- capitalized organized players, it is a blessing in disguise to be able to (1) build inorganic assets at high cap rates (2) optimize/relook capital allocation, and (3) further gain market share through consolidation," they said in a sector report dated August 21.