Heard on the Street - ET

Heard on the Street

Engineers India rides high on bonus issue buzz
The stock of Engineers India has gained over 24% in the past week on the BSE. The scrip ended over 2% higher at close on Wednesday at Rs 1,428.25. Brokers say the stock is being driven by speculation that the company may announce a bonus issue of shares shortly. The other key trigger has been the announcement last week by the government that it planned to sell stakes in profit-making public sector undertakings.

Analysts point out that Engineers India was among the few companies unaffected by the slowdown in 2008. Even as the company’s earnings grew 61% in FY09, there was a steady increase in new orders. Engineers India is well-entrenched in high-end project consulting, which provides the company an edge when it comes to bidding for hydrocarbon, metal and infrastructure projects.

IPO issuers ready to eat humble pie
The dismal performance of some of the recent initial public offerings seems to be prompting some of the prospective issuers to be a bit more “generous” when it comes to pricing their issues. For instance, last month, a mid-sized Mumbai-based realty firm announced that it was looking to raise around
Rs 1,500 crore through an IPO. Market buzz is that the projected figure has been shrinking over the past couple of weeks. Last heard, the company will raise around Rs 1,100 crore.

BSE gets ready to launch its derivatives offering
The Bombay Stock Exchange, which is also Asia’s oldest stock exchange, is likely to launch a derivative product next month. Unlike the existing derivative products, which expire on the last Thursday of every month, the expiry of this derivative product will in the middle of the month. “The trade cycle will expire on the second Thursday of every month as against the current practice of expiry on the last Thursday of the month,” said an official privy to the development. He did not disclose further details about the product.

According to the official, the exchange has received market regulator Sebi’s approval for the product’s launch. The move is aimed at boosting the fortunes of BSE’s sagging derivatives segment, which has not been able to compete with rival NSE’s derivatives segment. Trading in BSE’s derivatives segment has been non-existent, while the daily total turnover on NSE is usually around Rs 70,000-80,000 crore. NSE’s dominance in the equity derivatives segment has been a cause of concern for the market regulators.

Contributed by Deeptha Rajkumar, Santosh Nair and Reena Zachariah

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Src:Economictimes.Indiatimes.com, Moneycontrol.com

Heard on the street - ET

Top five stock picks | Top 5 Mid-term Picks

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Heard on the street

Suzlon comes back in style after a losing streak

Suzlon shares were among the biggest gainers on Thursday, rising over 13% to close at Rs 62.50, and snapping a eight-day losing streak that had prompted speculation of the company facing difficulties. The stock rose, even as the company informed stock exchanges that it had pledged additional shares with Indiabulls Financial Services, to which it owes roughly Rs 200 crore.

A person familiar with the development said additional shares had been pledged to provide for margin due to the 34% fall in stock price in less than two weeks. The shares were being hammered on talk that the company was struggling to refinance its foreign currency loans. The dramatic surge in the stock price on Thursday was driven by talk that the company has now managed to refinance close to Rs 10,000 crore of loans.

A leading state-owned bank is said to have provided the wind power company a fresh loan of $465 million. Have the bears called off their attack? Suzlon November futures closed at a slight premium to spot, with open interest rising 2.6%. This could indicate that in addition to covering of short positions, some fresh long positions too may have been initiated.

Bears were hammering the shares in the hope that the company would not be able to meet the margin requirement, thus prompting the lender to offload the pledged shares. While the company may have tided over its liquidity problems, bears seem to be taking heart in the weak operating performance, and are still hoping to rake a neat profit on their short positions.

MF has the last laugh after early fund erosion

EVEN as rivals rejoiced over the approximate Rs 2,000-crore fall in assets under management (AUM) of a leading fund house in October over the last month, officials in the mutual fund in question were actually celebrating. The industry buzz has it that the fund house held a party for its employees on Wednesday to celebrate a fresh inflow of a few thousand crores (sources say in the range of Rs 2,500-3 ,000 crore) into various debt schemes.

Ind-Barath Power to tap IPO market

HYDERABAD-BASED power generation company Ind-Barath Power Infra, which recently got $100-million funding from private equity funds Sequoia Capital and Bessermer Venture Partners, is planning to go public soon. According to an official privy to the development, the company has initiated talks with merchant bankers for the same.

The private equity firms together picked up more than 15% stake in the company, valuing it at over Rs 2,100 crore. This is the second round of private equity funding for the power generator, which has projects in Karnataka, Orissa, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. In 2007, Citi Ventures and UTI Ventures had invested Rs 300 crore in the company.


Contributed by Santosh Nair, Shailesh Menon & Reena Zachariah

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Src: Economictimes.Indiatimes.com