This Rekha Jhunjhunwala-owned stock hit new peak after a gap of 15 years

Shares of Aptech rallied 6 per cent to hit a new high of Rs 453 in Wednesday’s intra-day trade. The stock surged 11 per cent in the past two trading days in an otherwise subdued market. After a gap of over 15 years, the stock has touched a new peak. It surpassed its previous high of Rs 448.5 per share, which it had touched in December 2007.

Currently, Rekha Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, wife of ace investor Rakesh Jhujhunwala and one of the promoter of Aptech, held 23.35 per cent stake in the company, the shareholding pattern data shows. Rare Equity Private Limited holds 20.39 per cent stake, the data shows.
 

In the past 10 months, the stock price of Aptech has more-than-doubled or zoomed 131 per cent from Rs 196.05 in June 2022.

Aptech and its subsidiaries are primarily engaged in business of education training and assessment solution services. It is a global learning solutions company that commenced its education and training business for the last over three decades.

After the April-June quarter of fiscal 2022 (Q1FY22), Aptech reflected consistent and continuous trend every quarter, of improvement and growth in its financial performance.

On a like-to-like basis, the company’s quarterly operating revenue and PBT (before exceptional items) in the October-December (Q3FY23) quarter were the best in more than a decade.

In Q3FY23, Aptech’s PBT jumped 36.7 per cent year-on-year (YoY) and 301 per cent over pre-Covid-19 level to Rs 24.03 crore, whereas operating revenue grew 48 per cent YoY, and 218 per cent over pre-Covid-19 level to Rs 117.46 crore.

While the company’s growth brands continue to accelerate, the management is also quietly confident of a turnaround in other brands in the domestic market. The company said it is on track to deliver one of the best years in terms of financial performance and the trend shall continue for the near future.

 “Our strategic intent in the retail business remains to tackle unemployability at a mass scale by leveraging our unique job-enablement platform to address increasing number of job areas, including in newer verticals. With a significant part of our order book in the enterprise business, which includes part of the major order from an autonomous education body, already delivered, we are very close to achieving the guidance of Rs 135 crore order book for H2FY23 given by us during the previous quarter results,” Aptech said in Q3FY23 investor presentation.