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Street signs: Hindustan Aeronautics IPO, defence stocks, and more

Market players say investor sentiment towards the sector has turned negative on fears of government lowering defence spends

Pavan Burugula Samie Modak & Joydeep Ghosh 

HAL IPO: Foreign investment banks drop out over zero fees, inordinate delay

Big size, small demand

The recently-concluded initial public offering (IPO) of state-owned (HAL) has created a unique record - its Rs 42-billion offering saw only 17 applications from institutional investors, which is the least number of applicants for an of over Rs 10 billion. Not surprising then that the issue needed the support of state-owned “This is a new low in terms of institutional demand. Such a large offering should have at least seen 50 applications from institutional investors. The disinvestment department could have handled the issue better,” said a banker.

Pavan Burugula


Investors log out of defence stocks

Street signs: Hindustan Aeronautics IPO, defence stocks, and more
Shares of several defence sector-focused companies, including Astra Microwave, and are hovering around one-year lows. Market players say investor sentiment towards the sector has turned negative on fears of government lowering defence spends. “The capital spending in the sector has remained stagnant. Not many new projects are being announced. Also, large part of the defence spending is going to overseas suppliers. There are worries that increasing fiscal deficit could force the government to further slash spending. All these factors are weighing on stock erformance,” said an analyst.

Samie Modak

Fund managers need to be on guard

managers, who are actively buying stocks of various companies, have to be extra cautious while dealing with brokers. Recently, a fund manager received a marriage invitation from a broker, along with a box of sweets. The broker also gave a similar box to four other fund managers in the same fund house. The fund manager, along with his colleagues, kept the sweets in the middle of the room for everyone to share. One of the office assistants opened them and found a 10 gram gold coin in each box. “Luckily, all of us had kept our boxes in the middle of the office. Otherwise, there would have been an enquiry which would have been ugly,” says the fund manager.

Joydeep Ghosh

First Published: Sun, April 01 2018. 20:43 IST
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