Gokaldas Exporters' stock doubles in last six months

Hinduja family offloaded majority 70% stake to US-based private equity major - Blackstone, for around Rs 500 cr during 2007

The Madanlal J Hinduja family, who were the erstwhile promoters of Bangalore-based Gokaldas Exports, have started to monetise their holding further as the stock during the past six months has nearly doubled.

The Hinduja family who offloaded a majority 70% stake to US-based private equity major - Blackstone, for around Rs 500 crore during 2007, holds around 18% stake in the company and the members are offloading stakes in the wake of a strong growth in the stock price.  The stock is currently trading at just under Rs 60 a share from the lows of Rs 25 per share during mid August 2013.

Blackstone which took complete charge of the company during early 2012, has been working aggressively in controlling costs and during the past two quarters the company is in the black backed by a strong 16% growth in revenues for the 9-month period ending December 2013. Gokaldas supplies to global brands including Nike, Puma, Adidas, Benetton, Levis, Guess among a host of others.

The management of Gokaldas  has said that the market scenario is looking positive with the US economy, a key market for Gokaldas Exports, improving and the Euro zone showing signs of improvement.

"Our strategy of going deeper with our current set of customers is working in an environment where customers are increasingly focusing on vendor consolidating with capable vendors having substantial capacity and diverse capabilities," the company noted in a statement.

Business restructuring efforts, to streamline operations and enable closer customer-connecct, during the last 12-18 months, are beginning to yeild results.

"The overall demand pattern is likely to be stable in the short to medium term. Going forward, unusually high wage inflation is a key area of concern which could lead to higher operating costs affecting our country-competitiveness in the global markets. We are taking steps to neutralise the adverse impact of the same and sustain our focus on profitability and growth," the company added.