Greaves Cotton hits over four-year high; stock rallies 39% thus far in June

Shares of Greaves Cotton continued their upward movement and rallied 8 per cent in intra-day trade on the BSE on Wednesday to hit an over four-year high of Rs 174.45. The stock was trading its highest level since May 2017. It had hit a record high of Rs 178 on May 4, 2017.

Thus far in the month of June, Greaves Cotton has outperformed the market by surging 39 per cent, amid expectations of a strong business outlook. In comparison the S&P BSE Sensex was up 1.3 per cent during the same period.

Greaves Cotton is a diversified engineering company and a leading manufacturer of cleantech powertrain solutions (CNG, Petrol and Diesel Engines), generator sets, farm equipment, e-mobility, aftermarket spares, and services. Greaves Cotton augmented its clean technology portfolio in the last mile affordable 2W personal mobility segment with Ampere Vehicles in 2018.

On Tuesday, the Gujarat government has announced its new electric vehicle (EV) policy, which provides a purchase incentive of Rs 10,000/kWh for EVs with the segment-wise limits set at Rs 20,000/kWh for 2- W, Rs 50,000/kWh for 3-W and Rs 1.5 lakh/kWh for 4-W. The state will also incentivise setting up of charging stations via a capital subsidy of 25 per cent or Rs 10 lakh, whichever is lower.

“The policy focuses on the critical aspects of EV adoption, upfront purchase cost and charging infrastructure. Coupled with recent change in FAME-II incentives and other EV friendly steps like PLI scheme for advanced cell chemistry (Rs 18,100 crore in incentives over five years), EV specific policy announcements by states is a welcome step for the fledgling industry,” ICICI Securities said in a note.

Earlier, the Central government had made a partial modification of the scheme for faster adoption and manufacturing of electric vehicles in India Phase II (FAME India Phase II), including increasing the demand incentive for electric two-wheelers to Rs 15,000 per KWh from the earlier uniform subsidy of Rs 10,000 per KWh for all EVs, including plug-in hybrids and strong hybrids, except buses.

While announcing the March quarter results on May 4, Greaves Cotton’s management said the company’s new business (e-mobility and non-auto business) continues to grow and contributes 30 per cent to the overall business of the company. Greaves E-mobility segment has seen higher growth momentum, with Ampere gaining popularity due to the rise in demand for its electric two-wheelers (electric scooters) and electric three-wheelers (electric rickshaws).

The revision in the FAME (II) policy, increasing the subsidy by 50 per cent per KWh, is likely to accelerate electric two-wheelers sales for Ampere Vehicles, a subsidiary of Greaves Cotton. Ampere has more than half a dozen electric two-wheelers in its portfolio and with product for every customer price point in the affordable mobility and could further gain market share with new launches at varied price points. Electric mobility and new initiatives business of Greaves Cotton may provide much need growth uptick in long term amid languishing auto engine volumes, the brokerage firm had said in a note.