Vakrangee in free fall: Stock tumbles 53% in six sessions

NEW DELHI: Vakrangee tumbled as much as 10 per cent on Monday to take its losing losing streak to the sixth trading session. The stock has lost 53 per cent since January 25 closing of Rs 505.35 after a Mumbai Mirror report suggested that the company was being probed by Sebi for possible price manipulation.

Vakrangee, on its part, said it has not received any communication either from stock exchanges or Sebi. The rumours of involvement of the company in price and volume manipulation are completely baseless and factually incorrect, it claimed.

The stock hit its 10 per cent lower circuit at Rs 236.80 from a closing level of Rs 505.35 on January 25, representing a fall of 53 per cent. The scrip closed the day at the same level.


In a filing to the BSE, the company said: "We are extremely confident of our business model and continue to grow steadily. We are well on track to achieve our Vision 2020 target of 75,000 Vakrangee Kendra outlets by 2020 with $2 billion of revenue and covering each postal code of India.”

According to documents available with Mumbai Mirror, the trading of the Vakrangee scrip was analysed by both the exchanges from January 1 to June 30, 2016, and September 1, 2016, to June 15, 2017, after it was suspected that certain entities were trading the scrip and increasing its market gross.

Vakrangee's board will meet on February 18 to review and approve capital allocation policy of the company. Vakrangee in its treasury investment policy released on January 30 set certain guidelines, which suggest direct equity investments by the company is not permissible. But only a few days ago, Vakrangee had bought 20 lakh shares in PC Jeweller at Rs 561.71 apiece, aggregating Rs 112.32 crore.