Pharma stock rallies 9% as Quant SmallCap MF buys 0.5% stake via bulk deal

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The stock of smallcap pharma company Kopran Ltd rallied 8.6 per cent on BSE to over a 1-month high of Rs 281.15 in Monday's trade after Quant Mutual Fund (Smallcap Fund) bought 0.5 per cent holding in the company via bulk deals on Friday. 

Quant Smallcap Fund bought 250,000 shares of the companyon Friday, which made up 0.5 per cent of its 4,82,10,605 paid up equity shares, at Rs 255.41 apiece. This was a 1.4 per cent discount to its previous close.  

The names of the seller were not known. Kopran's share price has rallied 170 per cent in the last one year from a level of Rs 104 touched on March 20, 2023.  

At 2:15 pm, the stock had trimmed its gains and was holding nearly 4 per cent higher on the BSE. Its all time high of Rs 375 was reached on April 18, 1996 and all time low of Rs 6 was touched on Nov 20, 2008. 

Kopran Ltd deals in manufacturing formulations and pharma APIs. Its formulations include oral solid dosages and dry powder formulations for both penicillin- and non-penicillin-based drugs. 

For the latest quarter (Q3FY24), Kopran reported Rs 47 crore revenue from its penicillin plant and rest Rs 29.5 crore from the non-penicillin plant of the total Rs 77 crore revenue from formulations. 

While its API segment earned Rs 81.2 crore revenue, led by carbapenems, which are broad-spectrum antibiotics. These accounted for Rs 41 crore in the API segment. 

Overall, its Q3 net profit rose by 139 per cent on year to Rs 15.8 crore with revenue coming at Rs 161.35 crore, against Rs 160.22 crore a year ago. 

Meanwhile, Quant Mutual Fund, which was the first AMC to come out with its stress test results on Friday, revealed that it would take 22 days to liquidate 50 per cent of portfolio under its Quant Smallcap Fund and 11 days for 25 per cent liquidation.  

The AMC's Mid-Cap Fund, meanwhile, could take six days for selling half of its portfolio and 3 days to return 25 per cent of the portfolio. 

Other houses including HDFC AMC, SBI AMC, Nippon India, among others, have also released their stress test results.

Overall, the results show that it would take an average of 6 days for mid-cap funds and about 14 days for small-cap funds to liquidate 50 per cent of their portfolios, as per Moneycontrol. 

This came after market regulator Sebi recently mandated all mutual funds to assess the liquidity position of their portfolios in case there comes sharp redemptions. 

Last week, the smallcap and midcap indices on the Nifty saw sharp corrections, sinking u to 5.5 per cent for the week, while also pulling the benchmark indices by 2 per cent after Sebi flagged the froth in these segments.