Nicholas Piramal jumps on stake sale buzz

Nicholas Piramal India gained 3.31% to Rs 304.20 at 12:49 IST on BSE on reports the company is in talks with private equity funds for selling stake in its research arm.

Meanwhile, BSE Sensex was up 114.21 points or 0.71% to 16,237.36.

On BSE, 31,469 shares were traded in the counter. The scrip had an average daily volume of 88,636 shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 311.85 and a low of Rs 300 so far during the day. The stock had a 52-week high of Rs 383 on 19 December 2007 and a 52-week low of Rs 214 on 14 March 2007.

The company’s current equity is Rs 41.80 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2.

The current price of Rs 304.20 discounts Q3 December 2007 annualized EPS of Rs 14.13 by a PE multiple of 21.53.

According to reports, the research arm, Piramal Life Sciences, will be listed in India in the first or second week of June.

Lehman Brothers, Enam and Kotak Securities have valued the pipeline of drugs under development at the research entity between $480 million and $540 million, the reports added.

On 23 January 2008, Nicholas Piramal acquired pharmaceuticals business of Healthline, Bangalore for a consideration of Rs 15 crore.

On 19 December 2007, the company entered into a joint venture with Arkray of Japan to market diagnostic products, mainly self-monitoring blood glucose systems in the Indian market.

Nicholas Piramal India’s net profit rose 70.5% to Rs 73.82 crore on 19.2% growth in net sales to Rs 486.21 crore in Q3 December 2007 over Q3 December 2006.

Nicholas Piramal India is one among the top ten pharmaceutical contract-manufacturing firms in the world.