Oberoi Realty, Capacit'e Infra fall up to 8% on reports of raid by I-T dept

Shares of Oberoi Realty and Capacit'e Infraprojects slipped up to 3 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively in the afternoon trade on Tuesday after reports said Income Tax department had conducted searches at their respective Mumbai offices to probe related party transactions.

"There was suspicion on related party transaction within Oberoi. The I-T department also suspects a difference between the sale price of housing units shown on the books and the registered prices," a senior official of income tax department was quoted by Moneycontrol.

The report added that since Oberoi Realty deals in the luxury home segment, the department suspects benami transactions by flat buyers to hide their identities.

Capacite Infra is one of the largest vendors of Oberoi Realty and recently secured Rs 400 crore-worth orders, according to reports.

Earlier this month, the I-T department had conducted searches at Mumbai and Pune-based offices of four other realty firms, including Hub Town, Atul Projects, Wadhwa Group and Radius Developers, reports suggest. 

The searches across more than 40 premises led to recovery of “evidence related to receipt of ‘On Money’ sale of commercial and residential blocks, bogus unsecured loans taken, bogus long term capital gains and various other sham transactions to evade income aggregating about Rs 700 crore, a statement issued by the Press Information Bureau, on the behalf of I-T department, said.

The above mentioned searches were centered around the Hubtown Group. 

"Incriminating evidence was unearthed pertaining to modus operandi establishing the introduction of accommodation loans by the group, which have been found to be bogus. Moreover, the use of entry providers and hawala operators for entries of LTCG by the promoters of this real estate group have been affirmed during the search action," the CBDT had said in a statement.

At 2:00 pm, the stock of Oberoi Realty were trading 1.5 per cent lower at Rs 537 apiece on the BSE while that of Capacit'e Infraprojects was quoting at Rs 210.5, down 6 per cent. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was ruling 32 points, or 0.09 per cent, higher at 37,435 level. The Nifty Realty index, however, was trading 0.67 per cent lower.

So far in 2019, shares of Oberoi Realty have outperformed the benchmark index Sensex by rising 22 per cent, while that of Capacite Infraprojects have underperformed it as slipped 10 per cent. The S&P BSE Sensex, on the other hand, has risen 3 per cent during the same period.