Heard on the street>>21 Feb, 2008

Heard on the street
21 Feb, 2008, 0121 hrs IST, TNN

UB Engineering back on winning track

Post a bear phase, UB Engineering, has been gaining ground on the bourses. The shares of the UB group company consistently hit the 5% upper circuit between February 14 and 19 (four sessions), gaining 18% in a week.

The buzz at the counter is that the promoters may have firmed up their holdings by picking up the unsubscribed equity in the recent rights offer. Company sources, however, told ET that the issue was fully subscribed.

UB Engineering had offered rights in the ratio of 5:13 at a price of Rs 126 per share. The promoters held nearly 35% stake in the company before the issue. The stock had slipped from its peak of Rs 215 on January 18 to Rs 119 on February 13 but bounced back subsequently till it reached Rs 144.3 on Tuesday. It, however, fell 2.6% to Rs 140.5 on account of generally bearish market on Wednesday.

PSU banks, funds buoy REC subscription

Day two of the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) subscription, saw quite a few large bids by some of the banking majors. As per market talk, a large public sector bank has put in a bid of around Rs 900 crore. Two Gulf-based funds are also believed to have submitted bids in excess of Rs 900 crore each. Interestingly, a large FII, whose US operations have taken a hit, is expected to put in a large bid on Thursday.

According to NSE data, the QIB portion of the IPO was subscribed 4.52 times till Wednesday with bulk of the bids submitted by domestic financial institutions (DFIs) rather than the foreign ones. While the retail segment has been subscribed around 25%, the HNI portion has received a lacklustre response till date. Overall, the issue, which closes on February 22, has been subscribed 2.73 times as on Wednesday.

Churn at Birla AMC

The word is out that Mukul Gupta has quit as the chief executive officer at Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company. Mr Gupta had held office as the AMC head for an year. He was previously working with Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance as chief financial officer and head of bancassurance.

People familiar with the development maintain that Anil Kumar, who has worked with the overseas operations of Citibank is leading the race to take over the post. If indeed Mr Kumar takes charge, Birla Sun Life will become one of the many other fund houses to be led by an ex-Citibanker. ING, Reliance, Fidelity and Lotus AMC are some of the others.