NEW DELHI: Shares of Hinduja Global Solutions hit 20% lower circuit on Friday, its worst intraday fall in 14 years, after the company announced a lower-than-expected dividend, leaving investors highly disappointed. The stock closed the Friday session at Rs 2,855.54 on the BSE.
The company, engaged in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)/ Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), had announced an interim dividend of Rs 150 a share and one for one bonus share on Thursday. This came to Rs 315 crore total dividend against $1.09 billion sale of its healthcare operations.
“On completed sale of healthcare services of the company, HGS received around Rs 4,000 per equity share out of which only Rs 150 per share is declared as interim dividend. Although this disinvestment will make capital available for the company to make investments and grow business in other verticals like telecom, BFSI and media etc,” said Mohit Nigam, Head - PMS, Hem Securities.
Anita Gandhi, director at Arihant Capital Markets, said investors expected the dividend to be much larger after such a big deal. Friday’s slump in share price is in sharp contrast to the gain made by Hinduja in the past one month.
The stock had hit a record high of Rs 3,948 on Tuesday, January 4, 2022 after the company had informed exchanges regarding board meeting for considering interim dividend and a proposal for bonus issue of equity shares.
Hinduja Global recently announced completing the sale of its healthcare services operations to a wholly-owned subsidiary of Betaine BV, funds affiliated with Baring Private Equity Asia. Hinduja also approved to enhance the limits applicable for extending loans, making investments up to Rs 3,500 cr.