Boom time

Mumbai, April 13: The bonus bandwagon is rolling along. Gujarat Ambuja Cements will consider the largesse, along with a stock split, on April 20, while infotech company Geometric Software Solutions meets tomorrow to take a call on lowering the face value of its shares.

The moves come a day after MphasiS BFL announced a 1:1 bonus issue along with its forecast-beating performance. Gujarat Ambuja?s planned stock split will make the share more affordable for retail investors; a bonus issue will keep existing shareholders happy.

Gujarat Ambuja is poised for concrete gains in its bottomline this year, helped by demand so strong that it can ratchet up its growth pace from 8 per cent now to double digits.

The firm last came out with a bonus in 1999. Though this is on the cards this time too, sources close to the company made it clear that the plan, along with the stock split, has not been formalised.

That did not hold back investors, who drove up its stock to a high of Rs 439.70 on Dalal Street; it ended at Rs 425.25, an increase of Rs 19.30 over its previous finish.

GACL, which announced strong sales figures for March, was the fourth-most traded stock in the BSE A group. In all, 13.74 lakh shares, resulting in a turnover of Rs 59.15 crore, changed hands. Market watchers said a large private sector mutual fund was aggressively buying.

Details available for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, show that while promoters hold 23.59 per cent in the company?s equity, institutional investors own 49.52 per cent. These include mutual funds, banks, financial institutions, insurance firms and foreign institutional investors.

Retail shareholders control 11.34 per cent. The balance is shared among private corporate bodies, NRIs/OCBs, GDR holders and International Finance Corporation.