Avenue Supermarts hits over 8-month low; slips 12% in two days

Shares of Avenue Supermarts, which runs the D-Mart chain of stores, hit an over 8-month low of Rs 3,486, down 5 per cent on the BSE in Monday’s intra-day trade. In comparison, at 11:34 am, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.91 per cent at 54,335 points. 

The stock that has fallen 12 per cent in the past two days, was today trading at its lowest level since August 11, 2021. It has corrected 41 per cent from its 52-week high level of Rs 5,899.90 touched on October 18, 2021. 

In the past six months, the stock has underperformed the market by falling 26 per cent as compared to a 10 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex.
 

Avenue Supermarts on Friday said that the meeting of the board of directors of the company is scheduled on May 14, to consider and approve the audited financial statements for the quarter and financial year ended March 31, 2022.

In the January-March quarter (Q4FY22) business update, the company said it had reported soft revenue even after factoring some impact of the Omicron Covid-19 variant. Standalone revenue grew 18 per cent year on year (YoY) to Rs 8,606 crore, up 39 per cent over 4QFY20 levels, (which had nine days of lost sales, as per the management).

Blended revenue/sq. ft. fell 8 per cent YoY to Rs 31,800 (5 per cent below 4QFY20 levels), indicating weak same-store sales growth (SSSG) v/s our expectation of positive SSSG, Motilal Oswal Financial Services had said in its stock update.

That apart, Axis Mutual Fund Trustee Ltd A/C Axis Mutual Fund is the largest institutional shareholder of Avenue Supermarts, holding 3.56 per cent stake at the end of March 2022 quarter, the shareholding pattern data shows.

According to a Business Standard report, Axis Mutual Fund (MF), the country’s seventh-largest fund house, has suspended two fund managers, Viresh Joshi and Deepak Agarwal, amid allegations of irregularities in managing their funds.

The fund house has reassigned their responsibilities to other fund managers in seven schemes, which have combined assets under management of over Rs 7,700 crore. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has initiated a preliminary enquiry in the fund’s investment activity for the last two years, the report suggested. CLICK HERE FOR FULL REPORT