RailTel rallies 17% on institutional buying, up 52% over issue price

On February 26, Goldman Sachs India Fund and Nippon India Mutual Fund collectively bought 10.7 million equity shares of RailTel worth of Rs 120 crore

Shares of RailTel Corporation of India (RailTel) rallied 17 per cent to Rs 142.45 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in intra-day trade on Monday after the institutional investors bought a stake in the company via open market on its debut day on Friday. 

The stock of the state-owned telecom infrastructure provider made a strong debut on the bourses as it got listed at a 28 per cent premium at Rs 120.60. With today’s rally, it has zoomed 52 per cent from its issue price of Rs 94.

On Friday, February 26, Goldman Sachs India Fund and Nippon India Mutual Fund collectively bought 10.7 million equity shares of RailTel worth Rs 120 crore through block deals on the NSE, the exchange data shows.

Goldman Sachs India Fund bought 3.71 million equity shares in the company at Rs 113.57 per share on the NSE. Nippon India Mutual Fund bought 5 million shares at Rs 109 per share, while, Nippon India Mutual Fund-Multi Cap Fund bought 2 million shares at Rs 116.13 per share, data shows. The names of the sellers were not ascertained immediately.

RailTel is one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in India. As of January 31, 2021, the company had exclusive right of way along 67,415 route kilometre connecting 7,321 railway stations for laying optical fibre cable. RailTel offers leased line and VPN facilities and also provide IP-1 services. It provides strategic and critical network infrastructure to the central government and certain state governments. The company is also an implementing partner for the Bharat Net project to create optical fibre cable-based broadband infrastructure.

“RailTel has a strong financial position (debt-free) and has been consistently paying dividends since 2008. There are no listed peers for the company. The IPO is valued at 21.4 times price-to-earnings on an FY20 trailing basis, which is quite reasonable by looking at the strong future growth rates of the company,” Angel Broking had said in an IPO note.

At 09:50 am, RailTel was trading 14 per cent higher at Rs 138.60 on the NSE, as compared to a 1.6 per cent gain in the Nifty50 index. A combined around 23 million equity shares have changed hands on the counter so far on the NSE and BSE.