Shares of Vishal Mega Mart opened the session on June 17 with sharp cuts, plunging as much as 9% after a block deal worth a staggering ₹10,488 crore hit the counter. Even though the parties involved in the transaction could not be immediately identified, a CNBC-TV18 report stated that Vishal Mega Mart's promoter entity, Samayat Services, was looking to offload a 10% stake in the company.
Samayat is an investment vehicle of the Partners Group and Kedaara Capital.
As many as 91 crore shares, reflecting a 19.82% stake in Vishal Mega Mart, changed hands in the block deal. The transaction was executed at an average price of ₹115 per share, marking a discount of nearly 8% from the last close.
As per the CNBC-TV18 report, the deal was initially pegged at just over ₹5,000 crore, but was later upsized to ₹9,900 crore. Samayat Services held a commanding 74.55% stake in Vishal Mega Mart according to the company’s shareholding pattern for the March quarter.
Interestingly, the stake sale in Vishal Mega Mart struck just a day after the expiry of the company’s pre-IPO shareholder lock-in period. The lock-in expiry unlocked 256.2 crore shares of Vishal Mega Mart, a whopping 56% of its total outstanding equity, to turn eligible for trading. The stake that turned eligible to trade was valued at a staggering Rs 30,000 crore.
Vishal Mega Mart had only made its stock market debut in December last year, and as of the last close, its shares were trading nearly 70% above the IPO price of ₹78. This is despite the near 8% correction in the stock last month.
Furthermore, the block deal also tipped off a spike in trading volumes in the counter. As many as 102 crore shares of Vishal Mega Mart changed hands on the exchanges in just the initial minutes of trade, more than 100x the one-month average traded volume of one crore shares.
