Skip to main content

PSU stocks turn active on divestment hopes

With the change in the political equation in the Centre, public sector stocks seem to have found more buyers in the past few days.
While the benchmark index Sensex dipped by 0.27 per cent on Thursday, BSE-PSU was up by 1.79 per cent.
“PSU stocks are doing well partly because now with the Left withdrawing support, there is a possibility that in future disinvestments may happen,” said Ms Anita Gandhi, Head of Institutional Business, Arihant Capital Markets Ltd.
Many analysts were in agreement with this. There was little scope for disinvestments when the Left was supporting the Government. But now expectations are on the rise and PSU stocks are on the upside, said analysts.
The country is running a huge fiscal deficit and one of the ways to get rid of this would be to sell of the assets it holds in form of PSUs, said one of them.
There has been a sharp rise in fiscal deficit in April-May, according to the figures released by the Comptroller General of Accounts on June 30.
The fiscal deficit was Rs 73,201 crore, 54.9 per cent of estimated fiscal deficit of Rs 1,33,287 crore for the fiscal, mainly on account of the rising oil import bill.
If the Government divests part of its stake in PSUs, those companies in which the floating stock is low would stand to gain, said an analyst.
However, the Government will not divest at any price; in fact it is only if there is not much divergence between the fair value and the market value of those shares that disinvestments can happen,” said Mr Saurabh Sonthalia, Vice-President-Equity Strategy, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.
All PSU companies do require capital for their expansion plans and disinvestment is a more profitable way of acquiring capital, said Mr Sonthalia.
Currently many PSU stocks, (for examplebanks) are trading at discounts, and they could rise substantially should there be disinvestment in these companies, said an analyst.
Amongst the PSU stocks, NTPC, BHEL, and SAIL are up by 7 per cent from Monday’s close. (The Left Front withdrew support to the Manmohan Singh government on Tuesday.)
MMTC Ltd is up by 18 per cent, NMDC by 15 per cent, SBI by 5 per cent, IOC by 4 per cent, Power Grid by 14 per cent, BPCL by 16 per cent, GAIL by 8 per cent and NALCO by 3 per cent during the same period
MMTC hit the 10 per cent upper circuit on Thursday.
Another reason for PSU stocks finding favour is that having been battered a bit in the recent past, they are now being seen as value buys, said an analyst with a brokerage firm.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jyoti Structures bags Rs 253 cr worth orders

Jyoti Structures on Tuesday said it has bagged two orders worth Rs 253 crore from Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd and Eskom Enterprises (Pty) Ltd for construction of transmission lines. The company has bagged Rs 160-crore order from Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd for construction of transmission lines and sub-stations. Besides, the company's joint venture company Jyoti Structures Africa (Pty) Ltd has bagged a contract for Eskom Enterprises (Pty) Ltd, the electricity utility of South Africa for construction of transmission line. The scope of the order from Uganda Electricity Transmission Company includes supply and erection of Bujagali Interconnection Project, the manufacturer of transmission line towers informed the Bombay Stock Exchange. The contract valued at around $39.64 million (Rs 160 crore) is to be executed in 24 months, the company said, adding the company would construct 220 kV and 132 kV transmission lines and substations.

Company News

ITI Ltd seeks Rs2,000 crore aid from government (Live mint.com 26th Dec 2007) The funds are being sought to wipe out accumulated losses of Rs2,225 crore and to obtain working capital for telecom equipment manufacturing. According to a company official who did not wish to be named, a committee has been set up by the Centre to finalize the package. More

Inflation hits 42-week high of 7.57%

Inflation rose to a 42-week high of 7.57 per cent in the 12 months to April 19, higher than the previous week’s annual rise of 7.33 per cent, largely on account of an increase in food, metal products and industrial fuel prices, official data showed. Analysts said that the inflation of 7.57 per cent was “slightly higher” than their expectations and this could be due to price increase in tea and certain items in the steel group. India’s wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation now stood highest since November 13, 2004, when it was 7.68 per cent. Economists expressed confidence that the recent fiscal and monetary measures would yield results in the coming weeks. They, however, noted that inflation was unlikely to return to the comfort zone of the Reserve Bank of India any time this fiscal. “There could be some easing of food inflation given the good wheat production and likelihood of good monsoon. I see some temporary relief on food side. But commodities are tough to predict. The infla...