Vakrangee locked lower circuit for eight straight day; falls 34% in 8 days

The stock locked in lower circuit for the eight straight trading days, down 5% at Rs 190 with pending sell orders for a combined 12.34 million shares on the BSE and NSE

Shares of Vakrangee locked in lower circuit for the eight straight trading days, down 5% at Rs 190 on the BSE with no buyers were seen on the counter. At 12:44 pm; there were pending sell orders for a combined 12.34 million shares representing 1.1% of total equity of Vakrangee on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and BSE, the exchange data shows.

In the past eight trading sessions, the stock dipped nearly 34% from Rs 286 on March 21, after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and exchanges introduced additional surveillance measures (ASM) on total 20 stocks including Vakrangee with surveillance concerns such as price variation, volatility etc. with effect from March 26, 2018.

Date	Price in Rs	% chg	Number of days
03/11/2017	263.42
25/01/2018	505.35	91.8	59
08/02/2018	192.40	-61.9	9
16/02/2018	245.45	27.6	5
01/03/2018	154.85	-36.9	9
21/03/2018	285.60	84.4	13
04/04/2018	189.65	-33.6	8

The stock of Vakrangee has been volatile since January 2018, after the media report suggested that the company came under SEBI’s investigation for alleged price and volume manipulation of its own scrip at BSE and the NSE.

Between January 25 and February 8, in just nine trading sessions, the stock tanked 62% from Rs 505 (its record high on closing level) to Rs 192 on the BSE. The company’s market capitalisation eroded by Rs 331 billion from its record high level of Rs 535 billion during the period.

However, on February 3, the company clarified and said that Vakrangee would like to highlight that we have not received any communication either from Stock Exchanges or SEBI. The rumours of involvement of Company in price and volume manipulation are completely baseless and factually incorrect.

Before that, between November 3, 2017 and January 25, 2018, in 59 trading sessions, the stock nearly doubled from Rs 263 (adjusted to 1:1 bonus share) level after the company said that its board will meet on November 13, 2017 to consider issue of bonus share proposal.

Meanwhile, the board of directors of Vakrangee on March 31, 2018 approved appointment of Grant Thornton India LLP as consultant to carry outlet quality analysis of Vakrangee Kendras. The board also approved appointment of Arihant Capital Markets as a merchant banker to assist the company in successfully implementing buyback producer.