The stock markets seem to have finally got the trigger for a positive phase as good quarterly announcements of front-line technology companies have started streaming in. Cement shares also attracted fair attention. However, Zee was the stock of the day.
Cementing profits
ACC, the bellwether of cement stocks, was a hot favourite today with certain foreign institutional investors showing keen interest. It seems that the word had got out that the company was expecting to announce sparkling quarterly results.
While analysts were expecting the company to notch up a net profit of Rs 55-58 crore, it announced a net of Rs 43.95 crore, which is quite a handsome profit compared with its comparable quarterly loss of Rs 9.5 crore.
The company has made provisions for taxation using the new accounting standard of deferred taxation, which has led to a significantly higher tax provisioning at Rs 22 crore. Thus, the quarterly performance has almost met the expectation if the higher taxation is not accounted for.
The Big Bull brokerage is reported to have picked up around 3.5 lakh shares at the counter. However, the domestic institutional investors were seen offloading the stock for better gains. It was a decent return for an investor to sell at Rs 145, who would have entered at Rs 120 just a day before, market sources said.
Zee & Gadar
Zee was the main attraction today. The stock made waves on the news that the promoter of the company, Subhash Chandra, had sold 50 lakh shares through the stock market (BSE) to a long-term US-based institutional buyer. The strike price for the deal was around Rs 99.8 per share, market sources said.
Though, at the time of the deal, there was speculation about promoter selling off the stake, later during the day the company confirmed it to the press. A total of about 14 crore shares changed hands today on both the exchanges combined. Of this, BSE alone accounted for about 9.4 crore shares and the stock closed at Rs 108.40, up 11.35 per cent over its previous close.
Universal Banking is rumoured to have fixed the strategic deal since it was appointed by the company to get a strategic investor. The company promoters are expected to either offload another 1.20 crore shares or issue fresh shares of the same amount to repay its debt as per promise.
The stock is rumoured to be on the upswing not only due to strategic investor but also due to the relaunch of the flagship channel with improved programming which has already been turned into a pay channel. Moreover, Zee's first movie Gadar is also expected to collect gross revenues of Rs 100 crore. All in all, positive times are here again for Zee.
