Promoters ramp up stake amid market meltdown

Promoters of 20 firms purchase 3.09 mn shares from open market in May.

Promoters of small and medium enterprises bought shares from the open market to increase their stakes during the last month's stock market mayhem.

In May, promoters of 20 companies purchased 3.09 million shares valued at around Rs 40 crore from the open market.

While, in April, promoters of 14 companies bought 1.75 million shares for Rs 29.47 crore, in March, as many as 28 promoters acquired 1.3 million shares worth Rs 5.04 crore. In February, promoters of four companies purchased 1.65 million shares amounting to Rs 7.55 crore.

As per data extracted from the Bombay Stock Exchange's announcements, the promoters of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, IPCA Laboratories, Great Eastern Shipping Co, Rajshree Sugars & Chemicals, ADF Foods, Elder Pharmaceuticals, Garware Wall Ropes, Manugraph India and Polaris Software acquired equity shares from the open market in the month of May.

Bharat K Sheth, promoter of GE Shipping, acquired 5.7 lakh shares between May 15 and May 22 for an estimated value of Rs 15 crore. The shares of the company declined to a new six-month low of Rs 267.25 on May 17 from its all-time high market price of Rs 300.55 on May 8, 2006.

The promoter of ADF Foods, Ashok H Thakkar, bought 3.58 lakh equity shares of the company from May 22 to May 30. The ADF Foods stock hit an all-time high of Rs 37.90 on May 17 but lost a huge 46 per cent in less than a fortnight, settling at Rs 26 on May 30.

Sanjay S Shah and Pradeep S Shah and two other promoters of Manugraph India purchased 2.80 lakh shares of the company from the open market for Rs 6.80 crore in May.

Promoters of Rajshree Sugars acquired 1.78 lakh shares in four trading days last month. Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, one of the promoters of Saldanha Family Trust, bought 6,824 equity shares and Garware Wall Ropes, promoter of R B Garware, acquired 60,268 shares of the company.

Kaygee Investments of Ipca Laboratories, C K Mehta (HUF) of Deepak Nitrite, Umang Kerjiwal of Electrosteel Castings, Ashok Pamani of K Sera Sera Productions, Arun Jain of Polaris Software and Narendra Surana of Surana Telecom are a few other promoters to have bought their companies' shares from the open market in May.