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Bajaj Consumer Care Plunges After Promoter Sells 22% Stake In One Large Trade

The stock’s trading volumes jumped over 370 times its three-month daily average.

A Broker looks a graph depicting the change in sterling on the trading floor. (Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg)
A Broker looks a graph depicting the change in sterling on the trading floor. (Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg)

Shares of Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd. slumped the most in nearly three years after its promoter sold 22 percent stake in a single large trade.

Bajaj Resources Ltd., the promoter of the maker of Almond Drops hair oil, sold 3.22 crore shares or about 21.9 percent stake, according to data from stock exchanges. The parent sold the shares at Rs 194.05 apiece for Rs 629 crore on the BSE, according to Bloomberg data. Trading volumes jumped over 370 times its three-month daily average.

HDFC Mutual Fund was the top buyer as it acquired 77.5 lakh shares, or 5.2 percent in Bajaj Consumer. Aditya Birla Mutual Fund bought 2.7 percent, while ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund took 2.5 percent stake. Other buyers included Jupiter India Fund and Steinberg India Emerging Opportunities Fund with 1.6 percent each.

This brings down Bajaj Resources’ holding in the company to 38 percent. Interestingly, nearly 38 percent of the company’s equity is pledged with Axis Finance Ltd.

A person aware of details—speaking on the condition of anonymity as he isn’t authorised to speak to the media—told BloombergQuint that Axis Finance hasn’t invoked the pledge. What that means is the promoter is likely to have sold unencumbered shares in the open market.

Bajaj Resources and Axis Finance didn’t immediately respond to BloombergQuint’s text message and email.

The transaction caused the shares to tumble, making it the second-worst performer on S&P BSE 500 and NSE Nifty 500 indices. The stock has lost over 40 percent in market capitalisation so far this year compared with 7.8 percent gain in the Sensex.

Bajaj Consumer Care Plunges After Promoter Sells 22% Stake In One Large Trade

After its second-quarter earnings, Macquarie had put the company’s rating under review citing pressure from promoter’s debt and issues with its other businesses. The 14-day relative strength index, which indicates bullish and bearish signals, indicated the stock was the most oversold in almost five years.