Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s luck seems to be running low. His plan of offloading his stake in Aptech got thwarted after prospective bidders walked away from the table, according to The Economic Times.
Sources close to the deal told the newspaper that the deal was called off as there were not enough bidders, despite initial interest from different parties. It seems the sellers, including Jhunjhunwala, were expecting a value of about Rs 700 crore for the entire company, which equates to about 1.5 times the current market capitalisation of Rs 398 crore.
While the reason for the failure of the stake sale was not immediately known, it looks like the lack of clarity on Aptech’s exposure to the Chinese market seems to have played an important role in putting off bidders.
Core Education & Technologies, which had earlier expressed interest in bidding for Aptech, walked away without making a bid.
Jhunjhuwala and his family have an almost 32 percent stake in Aptech.The promoters have a35.76 percent stake in the company. Religare Finvest (4.32 percent), Morgan Stanley (1.18 percent) and the Royal Bank of Scotland (2 percent) are some of the institutions that have a stake in the firm.
•For the nine months ended December 2011, Aptech reported a 8.6 percent fall in sales to Rs 133.65 crore, while net profit rose to Rs 65.67 crore from Rs 10.92 crore earlier, mainly because of a huge jump in other income in the June-ending quarter.
Aptech’s shares have fallen by 24 percent in the past 12 months; in comparison, the Sensex has gained 0.7 percent.
Jhunjhuwala had been hopeful of completing the stake sale by March, the newspaper said. Clearly, he’s going to be disappointed.