Matrimony.com rallies 10% after block deals; stock hits fresh 52-week high

Shares of Matrimony.com hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 795, surging 10 per cent on the BSE in the intra-day trade on Thursday on the back of heavy volumes. At 09:15 am, around 500,155 equity shares, representing 2.2 per cent stake of the company, changed hands via bulk deal on the BSE, exchange data show. The names of the buyers and sellers could not be ascertained immediately.

Matrimony.com is one of the leading consumer internet companies in India. It is a signature consumer internet conglomerate, 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.

In the past two weeks, the stock has rallied 27 per cent after SBI Mutual Fund (MF) bought an additional 744,279 shares, or 3.3 per cent stake, in Matrimony.com through its various schemes.

The SBI Smallcap Fund and SBI Magnum Children's benefit fund – investment plan had purchased theses shares at price of Rs 643.90 per share, bulk deal data show. Post transaction, SBI MF's holding in Matrimony.com has increased to 5.46 per cent from 2.2 per cent earlier.

Meanwhile, JP Morgan Asset Management, which holds shares in Matrimony.com through CMDB, had offloaded nine million shares of the company via bulk deal, data show.

Fundamentally, for the first half (April-September) of financial year 2020-21 (H1FY21), Matrimony.com reported 14.6 per cent year on year (YoY) growth in its consolidated net profit at Rs 19.6 crore. EBIDTA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margin improved 210 basis points to 18.7 per cent from 16.6 per cent.

The management said the company's customer focus initiatives have yielded positive results and have achieved a strong billing and volume growth in September quarter. The profitability continues to grow with improved operational efficiency, it said.

At 11:28 am, the stock was trading 8 per cent higher at Rs 777 on the BSE, as compared to a 0.22-per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. A combined 580,000 equity shares had changed hands on the counter on the NSE and BSE till the time of writing of this report.