Pantaloon stake sale to help in deleveraging balance sheet: Sangeeta Tripathi, Sharekhan

In an chat with ET Now, Sangeeta Tripathi, Analyst, Sharekhan, shared her views on the Pantaloon stake sale to Warburg entity. Excerpts:

ET Now: The news that we have with us at hand is that Pantaloon is selling their stake in Future Capital at a price of Rs 162 per share to Warburg entity. Do you think that this is pretty much on expected lines?

Sangeeta Tripathi: From quite sometime now, there were talks and Pantaloon Group was all set to monetise this particular stake sale. Now the news has been on since last six months. Two-three deals were also there on line but it did not materialise. So, this is very much in line with what the Pantaloon strategy is overall. The price at Rs 162 appears to be really attractive from Pantaloon's point of view and Future Capital's point of view. It is at premium to what this stock is trading.

ET Now: What will really come to the table for a Pantaloon Retail because we have been talking about the mounting debt that the company is presently sitting on.

Sangeeta Tripathi: The entire structure of the deal is yet not clear but then any amount of money coming to Pantaloon via stake sale of this non-core retail division that is Future Capital Holding would definitely be positive and it will help in deleveraging the balance sheet.