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Sona Comstar jumps after marquee investors acquire Blackstone's 20.5% stake in Co.

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Sona BLW Precision Forgings jumped 5.54% to Rs 428.30 after auto component maker announced that Blackstone's 20.5% stake in the company has been acquired by long-term investors.

The company said that the funds affilifated with Blackstone have sold their balance 20.5% stake in Sona BLW Precision Forgings (Sona Comstar). Before today's transaction, Aureus Investment and Blackstone held 33% and 20.5%, respectively, in Sona Comstar as the auto technology company's co-promoters.

This stake sale happened via bulk deals in the open market, which saw strong demand from foreign institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, domestic mutual funds and insurance companies.

Marquee investors like the Government of Singapore, Fidelity, FMR, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and HDFC MF bought shares from Blackstone in the bulk deal.

 

Sunjay Kapur, promoter and non-executive chairman of Sona Comstar, said, "I am glad to have partnered with Blackstone and very happy that this has been a successful investment for them.

They helped recruit global experts to the company's board and enabled the company to go public last year with their capital markets expertise.

Moving forward, our focus remains on providing innovative products and solutions to our customers and creating value for all our stakeholders."

As per reports, Blackstone had acquired Comstar Automotive Technologies in 2017, followed by the acquisition of Sona BLW Precision Forgings in 2018. The two entities were later reportedly merged to form Sona Comstar in 2019. In total, Blackstone invested around $385 million in both businesses, reports stated.

Singapore VII Topco III Pte Ltd. had sold shares worth Rs 5,250 crore at the time of Sona BLW Precision Forgings' IPO. Consequently, the shareholding of Singapore VII Topco III Pte Ltd. declined to 34.18% on expanded post issue equity base, from 66.28% pre-IPO.

Singapore VII Topco II Pte, Ltd had sold 7,94,33,500 shares, equivalent to 13.59% stake in the company, in August 2022. Consequently, its holding in the company came down to 20.52% post the said sale of shares.

Sona BLW Precision Forgings is one of the world's leading automotive technology companies. The company has emerged as a global supplier with nine manufacturing and assembly facilities across India, USA, Mexico and China. It is primarily engaged in designing, manufacturing and supplying highly engineered, mission-critical automotive systems and components to automotive OEMs.

The company reported a 23.9% jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 107.10 crore on 38.95% surge in revenue from operation to Rs 675.26 crore in Q3 FY23 over Q3 FY22.

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First Published: Mar 14 2023 | 10:40 AM IST

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