How often do you check the expiry or manufacturing date when you buy a food item at the departmental store next door? If you do not, you cannot be called an intelligent consumer.

One smallcap company is making a lot of money making material to print essential real-time product details such as manufacturing date, expiry date, batch number and MRP on manufactured products.

And guess what? Many intelligent investors have foreseen prospects in the business and invested in the stock early on.

Shares of Control Print (CPL) have doubled investor wealth within 12 months in the ongoing stock market rally. The scrip jumped to Rs 492.65 on November 22, 2017 from Rs 244.15 on the same day last year.

BSE benchmark Sensex has risen 29 per cent to 33,561 from 25,960 during the same period.

The company’s stock hit a fresh all-time high of Rs 509.05 in Wednesday’s trade (November 22, 2017).

CPL is a leading domestic coding and marking player with manufacturing capability in printing machines, spare parts and associated consumables (ink).

The company’s products are used across sectors such as personal care, food & beverages, pharmaceuticals, construction materials (steel, cement) and extruded products (cable, wire, pipes).

As of March 31, 2017, the company had a market share of around 18 per cent in the oligopolistic market, valued at over Rs 1,000 crore.

The company realises 50 per cent of its revenues from industrial customers and counts Tata Steel, UltraTech and Shree Cement among its key clients. CPL realises the balance 50 per cent sales from the packaging sector with HUL being one key client.

The company has managed to log profits year after year. For the year ended March 31, 2017, Control Print posted a net profit of Rs 25.78 crore, down 1.41 per cent from Rs 26.15 crore reported for the year ago.

In FY12, FY13, FY14 and FY15, it reported net profits of Rs 7.97 crore, Rs 12.15 crore, Rs 13.78 crore and Rs 18.87 crore, respectively.

The company’s top line expanded from Rs 66.46 crore in FY12 to Rs 145.19 crore in FY17. It was at Rs 132.98 crore and 112.83 crore in FY16 and FY15, respectively.

During FY12-17, sales grew at 17 per cent CAGR while profit after tax increased at a CAGR of 26 per cent, primarily on the back of over 1,000 bps expansion in Ebitda margin.

Basant Kumar Kabra HUF, Ritu Joshi, Shiva Kabra, Pushpa Kabra are major promoters of the company and they held 55.90 per cent stake in it as of September 30, 2017, as per data available with BSE.

“We expect economic activity to pick up from grassroots levels, presenting opportunities for coding business,” the company said in its latest annual report.

Brokerage ICICIdirect.com has a ‘hold’ rating on Control Print.