Matrimony.com surges 14% as board to mull share buyback on Sept 05

The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 848, surged 14% on the BSE in Tuesday's intra-day trade and has rallied 40% in three weeks.

Shares of Matrimony.com hit a 52-week high of Rs 848, as they surged 14 per cent on the BSE in Tuesday’s intra-day trade after the company said its board will meet on Thursday to consider share buyback proposal. The stock surpassed its previous high of Rs 785.05 touched on August 21. It had hit a record high of Rs 1,242 on February 25, 2021.

Matrimony.com in an exchange filing said a meeting of board of directors of the company will be held on September 5, 2024, inter-alia, to consider and approve, the proposal for buy back of its fully paid up equity shares of the company and the matters necessary and incidental thereto.

At 09:30 am; the stock was trading 9 per cent higher at Rs 813.35, as compared to 0.05 per cent decline in the BSE Sensex.  In the past three weeks, the stock has rallied 40 per cent.

Matrimony.com is India’s leading consumer internet company managing marquee brands such as BharatMatrimony, CommunityMatrimony and EliteMatrimony. The company delivers matchmaking and marriage related services to users in India and the Indian diaspora. The company has pioneered several new business models such as WeddingBazaar.com, Mandap.com and CommunityMatrimony.com, a consortium of over 300 community matrimony services.

The company being the leader in the matchmaking space believes that growth prospects are high since the country has a large unmarried population coupled with the increasing internet and mobile penetration in India, cultural receptivity to arranged marriages and increased freedom of choice over life decisions. 

The internet base in India is expanding very rapidly and is expected to grow significantly in the coming years and this augurs well for the online matchmaking segment. To ride on the growth, the company will continue to focus on product and process improvements and invest in the brand, the management said in FY24 annual report.

The company has been entering into adjacent segments to capture new customers. It has launched MeraLuv.com, an exclusive dating app for Indian Americans. Soon it also plans to launch Luv.com, an App in the matchmaking space to address Next Generation (Next-Gen) serious relationships. The offering will focus on the theme of “love” before marriage, thereby building a clear differentiation and addressing the market potential, the company said.

Meanwhile, in the past one month over a dozen of companies have collectively repurchased shares worth around Rs 6,000 crore.  Analysts attribute the sharp rise to changes in India's share buyback tax regime from October 1. New rules announced in the Union Budget presented in July 2024 will shift the tax burden from companies to shareholders, altering the landscape for buyback strategies. Companies undertaking a buyback now have to pay effectively over 20 per cent as buyback tax. Shareholders tendering their shares do not attract any tax.