Jaipraksh Associates lost 19% of its value on Monday after it emerged that Jaypee Infra Ventures, a promoter entity, had sold 3.3 crore shares in the company over the last three trading sessions, reports Devangi Gandhi in Mumbai. Even otherwise, however, highly leveraged infra, construction and power firms that are trying to monetise their assets to lighten their debt burden have fallen off investors? radars in the last three months.
While the election-led market momentum had helped them outdo benchmark gains in the first half of the year, a sharp correction since mid-June has seen many of them trailing year-to-date market returns. While JP Power Ventures and GMR Infra have lost 29% and 1% of their value in 2014, DLF, Lanco Infra, and Tata Power have yielded muted returns. Stocks like Lanco Infra, GVK Power Infra and Punj Lloyd, which reported losses in FY14, and are not expected to turn profitable even in FY16 as per Bloomberg consensus estimates, were expected to perform on the back of deleveraging efforts. However, investors remain wary of their high debt ? GMR Infra has a net debt of Rs 42,492 crore and Jaiprakash Associates Rs 58,882 crore ? given asset sales have fetched them only 5-9% of their total borrowings.
