Quess Corp nears record low; stock tanks 11% on heavy volumes

Shares of Quess Corp were under pressure for the fourth straight trading day and tanked 11 per cent to Rs 462, also its 52-week low on the BSE on Thursday, on the back of heavy volumes.

The stock was trading close to its all-time low price of Rs 452 touched on July 14, 2016. In the first four trading days of July, Quess Corp's market price has plunged 20 per cent, against 1.2 per cent rise in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.

Quess Corp is engaged in the business of providing services in global technology solutions people and services integrated facility management industrials and internet business. Thomas Cook India owns 49 per cent in Quess Corp.

Last week at its board meeting, the company deferred the decision on raising funds. "The same would be considered at a later date,” Quess Corp said in a regulatory filing.

Since May 21, post the January-March (Q4FY19) results, the stock has slipped 35 per cent after reporting a flat net profit of Rs 76 crore over the previous year quarter. EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) contracted 4 bps to 5.74 per cent primarily on account of operating losses at Monster. In comparison, the benchmark index was up 1 per cent during the same period.

"According to management, the company will invest around Rs 30-40 crore in Monster and improvements will be visible from Q1FY20. Monster is expected to post around Rs 20-25 crore loss at EBITDA level in FY20 but hopes to exit the year with a break-even quarter," analysts at SBICAP Securities said in result update.

Quess Corp had raised Rs 400-crore through initial public offering (IPO) in July 2016, by issuing shares at price of Rs 317 per share.

At 12:31 am, the stock was trading 7 per cent lower at Rs 482 on the BSE, as compared to 0.21 per cent rise in the Sensex. The trading volumes on the counter jumped over seven-fold with a combined 581,056 shares changed hands on the NSE and BSE so far.