Stock Review: Patni

 

Generally after the open offer, the shares start correcting. The same thing has happened with Patni. The open offer came at Rs 503.50 which closed in the last week of April and the share is at Rs 380 now.

The reason for this poor performance or fall in the share price has was because of their first quarter results, which are not so disappointing. It can be called as a flat result with topline of close to about Rs 900 crore and bottom line of close to Rs 160 crore. It translates into an EPS of Rs 12.20. The company may post an EPS of about Rs 50, which was at Rs 47-48 for calendar year 2010.

iGate has acquired 63% stake in the company from the promoters as well as from part of the GDR holdings. Thereafter, they have made an open offer of 20%. All that 20% shares must have come to them in the open offer. They will be holding about 83% of the stake. Sebi has stipulated a condition on iGate that the company will not get delisted, as it is the track record of iGate to delist companies. If they remain with 83%, the stake sale and dilution is expected to happen.

After six months, once all these activities get over, they may look to reinitiate the process of delisting because post open offer, about 10-12% stake will be held by GDR as well as FII, where 83% float as well as 12% of this will make 95-96% with very least public float.

At Rs 380, there isn't any downside. Once the float gets exhausted under the open offer, there will be renewed interest coming in the stock because share is ruling at a P/E multiple of 8. Patni is in top five companies in the IT sector of the country.

At these prices, there is very limited downside of about Rs 10-15. Once it starts having all these news-flows coming in, then the share can easily move back to about Rs 450 in may be next three-four months' time.