04 February 2010

Heard on the Street and Morning calls

Heard on the Street

FIs lap up Bharati Shipyard on open offer

hopes


Institutional investors have turned active in Bharati Shipyard shares amid speculation that the company may eventually go for a second open offer, after hiking its stake to nearly 46 per cent in oil and gas drilling services firm Great Offshore through the recently-completed open offer and subsequent secondary market acquisitions.

Leading foreign broking house Credit Suisse (Singapore) bought 7.6 lakh shares, or 2.8 per cent, recently to raise its stake to 6.6 per cent of Bharati Shipyard’s equity.

The stock has been on a roll in recent times and has more than doubled in the past two months. On Wednesday, it closed one per cent up at Rs 333, with a total of 10.8 lakh shares changing hands on BSE.

Dealers tracking the stock say if Bharati Shipyard increases its stake further to 51 per cent or beyond through the creeping acquisition route, it would be mandatory for the company to make another open offer under SEBI guidelines. However, this could not be confirmed from company officials.

Crompton, Kirloskar Oil withstand selling pressure

Shares of engineering firms like Crompton Greaves and Kirloskar Oil Engines have managed to withstand the sell-off in second-line shares over the past couple of weeks. Dealers tracking the counters say that fund managers already holding shares in these companies have been topping up their exposure.

Disappointing quarterly numbers from Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is prompting many fund managers to cut exposure to that company and deploy the money in other companies in the sector with a better earnings visibility, they say.

Punters use FII stake buy rumours to ramp up Selan

Some operators have been trying to ramp up shares of oil exploration company Selan Exploration Technologies by floating rumours that a couple of foreign funds would be buying stake in the company.

If market sources are to be believed, European bank ‘Beer Clay Capital’ and American hedge fund ‘Bone Pickens Capital’ are eyeing a stake — through secondary market purchase — in the company.

Sources close to the company denied knowledge of any such move by the above-mentioned institutional investors. According to analysts, Selan Exploration may need to raise capital to start and increase production in its Bakrol and Indrora fields. Shares of Selan Exploration ended 0.8 per cent lower at Rs 403.50 on the BSE on Wednesday.

Contributed by Apurv Gupta, Vijay Gurav & Shailesh Menon


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Src: ET, DP blog etc