Ashoka Buildcon zooms 12% on receipt of order worth Rs 1,000 crore

Shares of Ashoka Buildcon zoomed 11.5 per cent to Rs 104.05 apiece in the early deals on the BSE on Monday after the company's subsidiary bagged a project worth Rs 1,000 crore in the state of Telangana.

According to the infra developer's BSE filing, its arm Ashoka Concessions Limited has received a Letter of Award (LOA) from National Highways Authority of India, the central government's arm for constructing national highways across the country, for the projects under Bharatmala programme, the flagship programme of the government to develop highways worth Rs 6.92 trillion across India. The bagged project includes four laning of NH-161 from Kandi to Ramsanpalle inTelangana on Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM).  READ FILING HERE

At 9:52 AM, the stock was trading 5.25 per cent higher at Rs 98.15 per share. In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was up 0.55 per cent. A total of 1.92 million shares have changed hands on the NSE and BSE till the time of writing of this report. In the paat one month, the stock has underperformed the benchmark by declining 9 per cent, as against a 0.5 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex.

For the quarter ended September 2019, the company reported a 17.1 per cent YoY rise in net profit at Rs 73 crore. The EBITDA, too, rose 35.7 per cent YoY to Rs 162 crore, while the revenue increased 10.4 per cent to Rs 862 crore.

"With a strong order book (c. 2.5x FY19 sales) and having received appointed dates for all its HAM projects (ex- Tumkur IV HAM), the company is poised to deliver nearly 18 per cent PAT CAGR over FY19-21E. We value ABL at 6x FY21 EV / EBITDA for the EPC business and NPV value of BoT (implied P/BV at c.0.9x) to arrive at a TP of INR 172 while stock currently trades at c.3x FY21 SA EPS," wrote analysts at J Financial in a result review note. The brokerage firm maintains 'buy' call on the stock.

Analysts at Anand Rathi Shares and Stock Brokers, too, maintain 'buy' on the stock on the back of healthy balance sheet and expectations of the construction work picking pace post monsoon season.

"Delayed appointed dates, RoW issues for TOT and the monsoon-impacted Q2 made management lower revenue guidance from 25-30 per cent earlier to 20-25 per cent. Margin guidance held at 11-12.5 per cent, but FY20 is expected to be better on the strong Q2. Inflow guidance has been held at nearly Rs 40bn-60bn, but is subject to return of the NHAI awarding," they wrote in a report dated November 18.