Trent: Siddhartha Yog Buys Stake For Rs 843 Crore

Siddhartha Yog, the founding partner of Xander Group Inc. and the chairperson of Virtuous Retail, bought a stake worth Rs 843.2 crore in Trent Ltd. through an open market transaction on Tuesday.

Dodona Holdings sold 13.02 lakh shares at Rs 6,475 apiece, according to the block deal data on the National Stock Exchange. This is the sixth time that Yog has purchased a stake in Trent from Dodona Holdings.

As of September, Dodona Holdings had a 3.01% stake in the company, while Siddhartha Yog held a 1.52% stake.

The Xander Group founding partner had acquired 12 lakh shares from Dodona Holdings for Rs 838 crore on Nov. 4. In October, Yog acquired an over 0.60% stake in the Tata Group retail firm through two deals for Rs 1,693.3 crore.

In September, Yog had acquired a 0.3% stake in Trent for Rs 718 crore. During this period, Dodona Holdings sold 1 million shares for Rs 7,115 each.

In August, Yog had acquired a 0.27% stake in the company for Rs 649 crore through a block deal. Dodona Holdings served as the seller, offloading 9.48 lakh shares at a price of Rs 5,220 each.

Shares of Trent closed 1.94% higher at Rs 6,423.85 apiece on the NSE, compared to a 0,28% advance in the benchmark Nifty 50. The stock has risen 144.93% on a year-to-date basis and 113.98% over the past 12 months.

Thirteen out of the 22 analysts tracking the company have a 'buy' rating on the stock, five suggest 'hold' and four recommend 'sell', according to Bloomberg data. The average of 12-month analysts' consensus price targets implies a potential upside of 6.1%.

Trent posted a solid revenue and profit growth in the second quarter of the current financial year but still fell short of analysts' 'elevated' expectations, mainly due to store consolidations and a slowdown in additions. The Tata Group's retail arm saw a 47% rise in net profit to Rs 335 crore, short of the Rs 431-crore estimate projected by Bloomberg analysts.

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