Sona BLW shares plunge after huge block deals
1 min read . Updated: 18 Aug 2022, 11:30 AM IST
Premium- Sona BLW shares plunged about 6% in Friday's trading session
Shares of Sona BLW Precision Forgings Ltd, also known as Sona Comstar, plunged more than 6% on the BSE in Thursday's early deals after about 10 crore shares changed hands through block deals.
Reports suggested that private equity major Blackstone will sell Sona BLW Precision Forgings Ltd’s shares worth ₹3,971.7 crore through a block trade today, according to the terms of the deal seen by Bloomberg.
The Indian unit of Nomura Holdings Inc. is the sole placement agent of the deal. Books are set to close Thursday. The Blackstone-controlled entity held a 34.1% stake in Sona BLW as of June 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The private equity firm had sold a large chunk of its shareholding worth ₹5,250 crore during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in June last year.
Sona Comstar designs, manufactures and supplies highly engineered, mission-critical automotive systems and components to auto original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) across the US, Europe, India and China, for both electrified and non-electrified powertrain segments. The company has manufacturing and assembly units across India, China, Mexico and the US.
Automotive technology firm Sona BLW Precision Forgings reported a net profit of ₹76 crore in the April-June quarter. The company's revenue during the first quarter of the current fiscal grew 18% to ₹589 crore, as compared to ₹500 crore in the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal, on the back of a 68% year-on-year growth in the Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) business.
The Ebitda (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) growth, however, was lower at 3% due to further increase in the material and power costs during last quarter. The company's net order book increased by 10% to ₹20,500 crore at the end of June 30, 2022 from ₹18,600 crore as of March 31, 2022.
"The global automotive markets remained challenging as light vehicle sales declined 17 per cent due to the supply side disruptions. Our revenue grew 18 per cent y-o-y in the first quarter, driven by the rapid scale-up of revenue from BEV programmes," said Vivek Vikram Singh, MD and Group CEO.
