Ashish Kacholia picks stake in newly-listed firm, sends stock roaring to record high

Venus Pipes & Tubes share price: This multibagger pipes and tubes manufacturing stock hit an all-time high of Rs 867.55 per share after surging by 10.5 per cent on the BSE intraday during Wednesday’s trading session.

The Street queued to buy shares of Venus Pipes & Tubes after ace investor Ashish Kacholia on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, picked about 4,00,000 equity shares, which translates to nearly 2 per cent stake in the company, as per the block deal data available on the BSE.

Venus Pipes has been a blockbuster IPO (Initial Public Offer) last year. The company's stock was listed at Rs Rs 337.50 on the NSE, up 3.5 per cent from the IPO price of Rs 326 apiece.

Since then, the pipes and tubes making company's shares have zoomed a whopping nearly 140 per cent to give nearly 1.5 times returns to investors.

The stock at around 11:40 AM was up 7.5 per cent to Rs 844.30 per share from Tuesday’s closing of Rs 785.40 a share on the BSE.

The renowned investor Kacholia – who is fondly called as Big Whale of Dalal Street – publicly holds 43 stocks with a net worth of over Rs 1,794.3 crore as of April 12, 2023, according to the stock analysis website trendlyne.com.

Celebrity investor Ashish Kacholia has investments in over 20 stocks and has a varied portfolio that includes hospitality, education, infra, and manufacturing stocks, as per trendlyne.com.

The company, under the brand name Venus, supplies its products for application in diverse sectors, including chemicals, engineering, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, power, food processing, paper and oil and gas.

According to domestic brokerage firm Nuvama Institutional Equities, the company's management is confident of ramping up capacity utilisation to 70 and 85 per cent by FY24 and FY25, respectively, since its existing capacity is operating at 90 per cent utilization.

The brokerage remains bullish on the stock as demand for stainless steel tubes and pipes is strong. It noted that the company has captured a market share of 4 per cent in stainless steel pipes and tubes and now it aims to become the third largest by market share of around 10 per cent by FY24E.