Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Oct 30, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Oct 30, 2004 |
||
|
|
||
|
Markets
-
Stock Markets Gulf market opportunities push up Simplex Concrete
Virendra Verma
Mumbai , Oct. 29 SHARES of construction company Simplex Concrete Piles have been attracting interest of investors due to strong order book position. In the last few days, the stock has gained around 10 per cent while it has almost doubled in the last couple of months. In today's trading, Simplex closed at Rs 170, down marginally by 1.65 per cent, with volumes of 12,573 shares on the BSE; on the NSE, it closed at Rs 171.25, down 0.44 per cent, with volumes of 30,730 shares. Dealers said the stock of Simplex has under performed compared to other construction companies and the good order position of around Rs 2,500 crore has brought investors' interest. The spiralling global oil prices have opened up interesting business possibilities for Simplex in the form of overseas orders. "We are noticing tremendous activity in the infrastructure development sector in the Gulf, apart from North Africa and Central Asia. The oil producing nations are ploughing back the returns on oil export into infrastructure development on a large scale," says Mr Amitabh Mundhra, Director of the company. The rising oil prices, apart from other factors, have prompted the company to re-fashion its business strategy so as to give a sharper focus on exports. "We intend to increase our export turnover from the present 10 per cent of our total earnings to 50 per cent over the next five years. "We have been getting increased queries from countries in West Asia and North Africa," Mr Mundhra told Business Line. The company will be bidding for the new engineering-based infrastructure projects in these markets, encompassing sectors such as power, road and airport development projects. Recently, the company bagged a major EPC contract worth Rs 100 crore from Qatar Petrochemical. "We will be looking at projects of relatively smaller scale, involving a value of between Rs 50 crore and Rs 350 crore each. Another reason that has prompted us to increase our focus on export is that this could reduce our risks," according to him. In the domestic market, the company will be focusing on urban infrastructure, nuclear and thermal power and port projects. It recently bagged a Rs 980-crore contract - its biggest so far - from Nagarjuna Power Corporation, for carrying out civil construction works for the 1,015 mw power project being set up near Mangalore.
More Stories on : Stock Markets | Real Estate & Construction
Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page
|
Stories in this Section |
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | The Hindu Images | Home |
Copyright © 2004, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|