Merry Lunch loses patience

STREET SIGNS

Merry Lunch has suddenly pressed the sell button at the Strides Arcolab counter. The fund decided to offload nearly 1.8 lakh shares at Rs 258. The ones who have been watching the stock at close counters were left wondering about the strange ways of Merry, as the counter has witnessed a deluge of positive news flow in the recent past.

Apart from the fact that the company has reported a 43 per cent growth in profit at Rs 16.13 crore for Q2FY05, it also announced plans to buy a Polish pharmaceutical facility. What is more Strides is also planning to take a 70 per cent stake in an Italian company.

The two moves, totalling a combined investment of $10 million (Rs 44 crore), will give Strides the first manufacturing footprint in Europe. To top it all, it has received the USFDA approval for its manufacturing site in Bangalore for oral dosage forms. But surprisingly, even after all this the stock is struggling to breakout after nearly crossing Rs 300 in early June. May be Merry Lunch simply got tired waiting for good things to happen.

Banking on banks
Banking stocks continue to see lot of interest. The latest one to join the bandwagon is Mr AB Amre who bought more than 10 lakh shares of Bank of Punjab at Rs 38.47. Though many have been advising to sell Bank of Punjab, Amre seems to think that the merger of the bank with Centurion Bank may not be such a bad idea after all.

The share swap has been fixed at nine shares of Centurion Bank for every four shares of Bank of Punjab and the merged entity is proposed to be re-named Centurion Bank of Punjab. Whether that helps the Bank of Punjab stock, which hasn't moved anywhere at all since the start of the year remains to be seen.

Hot commodity
Big Bank's recently launched commodities fund has started getting its feet wet in the markets. The fund recently bought nearly two lakh shares of Atul Ltd at Rs 94 levels. The stock of the chemical manufacturing company has seen a fair appreciation in the past year, with the stock price moving up from Rs 36 levels.

Another one busy making purchases was Metro fund who has bought more than two lakh shares of Ruchi Soya at Rs 259 levels. The company's good performance in the June quarter seems to have influenced Metro's decision, as the company announced a near 30 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 7.78 crore. What is more, according to a recent survey, the company was the fastest growing FMCG company in FY05, reporting a growth of 62 per cent.