Radhakishan Damani’s midas touch seems to be taking his company’s stock value to higher levels. Avenue Supermarts (ASL), the promoter of retail chain D-Mart, on Monday joined the club of domestic companies with ₹1 trillion market capitalisation.
The scrip touched a high of ₹1,619 on Monday to cross the ₹1-trillion mark.
ASL, which was listed in March 2017, touched the ₹1-trillion market-cap mark just 15 months after its stock market debut, making it one of the fastest to do so.
“The milestone achieved by ASL is purely based on investor confidence in the company’s management and promoter,” said Arun Kejriwal, Director, KRIS, an investment advisory firm. “ASL will be treated as a defensive investment in future.”
Up, up and away
Avenue Supermarts had made a historic market debut last year, with its stock gaining 114 per cent over the issue price of ₹299 to close at ₹641 — one of the best listing-day performances till date.
The company’s share price has gained 153 per cent since listing on March 21, 2017, compared to a 21 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex over the same period. ASL has gained 441 per cent from the issue price of ₹299 offered at the time of its initial public offering.
Last week, ASL said that its promoter Radhakishan Damani had sold nearly 6.2 million shares or a 1 per cent stake to ensure that the firm meets minimum public shareholding norms. Recently, the company was also included in the MSCI India Domestic and MSCI India Domestic Small Cap Index with effect from June 1.
For the quarter ended March 2018, ASL reported a net profit of ₹167 crore, up 73 per cent from a year ago. Its total revenue rose 22.5 per cent from the previous year to ₹3,810 crore.