This stock from Dolly Khanna's portfolio has rallied 121% so far in 2021

Dolly Khanna acquired 161,336 equity shares or 1.26 per cent stake in Neuland Lab during the quarter ended March 2021

Shares of Neuland Laboratories hit a new high of Rs 2,425 as it rallied 6 per cent on the BSE in intra-day trade on Tuesday. The stock has surged 16 per cent in the past three trading days. Thus far in the calendar year 2021, the stock of the pharmaceutical company has zoomed 121 per cent as compared to a 3 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex.

Chennai-based ace investor Dolly Khanna acquired 161,336 equity shares, representing a 1.26 per cent stake, in Neuland Laboratories during the quarter ended March 2021 (Q4FY21), according to the shareholding pattern filed by the company. Dolly Khanna held nil or less than one per cent stake in Neuland Laboratories at the end of the December quarter.

Meanwhile, another investor, Mukul Mahavir Agrawal purchased an additional 49,764 equity shares of Neuland Laboratories during Q4FY21 from the open market, data shows. Post-acquisition, his holding in the company increased to 2.34 per cent from 1.95 per cent in the previous quarter.

For the first nine months of the financial year 2020-21 (9MFY21), the company's net profit has more than doubled to Rs 63.1 crore on the back of strong operational performance. It had reported a profit of Rs 25.2 crore during the same period of the previous fiscal (9MFY20).

In 9MFY21, the company's Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) jumped 66.5 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 122.5 crore while margins expanded by 490 basis points (bps) YoY to 17.7 per cent from 12.8 per cent in the same period last year. Total income grew 21 per cent YoY to Rs 693.70 crore.

The strong performance during the said period was driven by growth across the generic drug substances (GDS) and custom manufacturing solutions (CMS) verticals. The change in the business mix with increase in margins from CMS business and certain speciality products and cost optimisation measures helped improve the profitability. The management remains confident of the company’s long-term growth aspirations as well as margin resilience.

"The driver of this period’s CMS uptick has been the strong performance from the scale-up projects which have contributed to the revenues. Unit 3 has started commercial production and the company is currently shipping out 2 API’s from this facility. The management expects Unit 3 to be a major driver of growth going forward," the management had said while announcing its December quarter results on February 2.

At 02:44 pm, the stock was trading 3 per cent higher at Rs 2,363 on the BSE as against a 0.13 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex. A combined around 125,000 equity shares had changed hands on the counter on the NSE and BSE so far.