Astral Poly Technik gains 5% in weak market as firm to consider bonus issue

The company's board of directors is scheduled to meet on February 3, 2021, to consider proposal for issue of bonus equity shares

Shares of Astral Poly Technik climbed 5 per cent to Rs 1,731 on the BSE in Thursday's intra-day trade, in an otherwise weak market, after the company said it would consider a bonus issue plan next month.

At 09:19 am, the stock of the plastic products company was trading 3.5 per cent higher at Rs 1,708 as against a per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex. The stock had hit a record high of Rs 1,841, on December 31, 2020.

The company's board of directors is scheduled to meet on February 3, 2021, to consider a proposal for the issue of bonus equity shares. The board will also consider the unaudited financial results for the quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2020 (Q3), the company said in an exchange filing.

Earlier in September 2019, the company had issued bonus shares in the ratio of 1:4 that is one bonus equity share of Re 1 each for every four fully paid-up equity shares held in the company.

In the past three months, the stock has outperformed the market by surging 46 per cent as compared to a 16 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. In six months, it has zoomed 85 per cent as against a 24 per cent gain in the benchmark index.

For the July-September quarter (Q2FY21), Astral Poly Technik had reported a strong operational performance with 220 basis points improvement in Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) margins at 21.02 per cent, led by various cost optimisation measures.

The management said the recovery in pipe segments has picked up momentum from September 2020 onwards. The adhesives business is also doing better from July 2020 and further picked up from October 2020, it said. The company’s expansion work at Orissa (Bhubaneswar) has started getting momentum. The management is targeting to start production in Q2 this year.