IRB Infra shares plunge over 10% after ₹2,656 crore block deal

IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd shares plunged over 10% in trade on Tuesday, June 11, after a huge block deal was executed on the share counter.

According to data available on exchanges, almost 41.2 crore shares, representing about 6.8% equity of the company, changed hands via open market transactions.

The deal was executed at an average price of ₹64.40 per share, aggregating into a total transaction size of ₹2,656 crore. The buyers and sellers were not immediately known.

The average transaction price was almost 8% lower than the stock’s previous close of ₹70.16 on Monday on the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). Consequently, IRB Infra shares plunged as much as 10.2% on Monday to hit an intraday low of ₹63 on the NSE. By 9:54 am, the stock had slightly trimmed its losses to trade 7% lower at ₹65.25.

According to media reports, global infrastructure company Ferrovial’s affiliate Cintra was planning to sell around 5% stake in IRB Infra through a block deal to raise around $228 million.

The company’s shareholding data shows that Cintra held a 24.86% stake in IRB Infra as of the end of the March 2024 quarter.

The reports added that the transaction will trigger a lock-in period of 150 days before Cintra could offload any more stake in IRB Infrastructure via block deals.

For the March quarter, IRB Infrastructure announced an over 45% increase in net profit to ₹189 crore compared with ₹130 crore in the year-ago period.

The company’s revenue from operations jumped over 27% to ₹2,061 crore in Q4 FY24 compared with ₹1,620 crore in Q4 FY23.

EBITDA, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, was up over 17% to ₹890 crore during the quarter against nearly ₹759 crore in the year-ago period.