Tag: irctc

NEW DELHI: Shares of India’s top railway e-ticketing platform almost recovered from a record slump of 30% after the government canceled its proposal to share half of the state-run company’s convenience fee revenue.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp’s shares traded 3.2% lower as of 11.20am in Mumbai, after plunging earlier in the session.
The development impacted some other state-run companies as well. Potential divestment candidate Container Corp fell as much as 3.9%, while Bharat Petroleum Corp dropped as much as 1.7%.
The uncertainty related to IRCTC can weigh on investors’ faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reform agenda, including his plans to divest national assets and carry out an initial public offering of insurance giant Life Insurance Corporation of India.
The government is not taking into account “interest of investors while taking business decisions,” said Deven Choksey, a strategist at KRChoksey Investment Managers Pvt in Mumbai. “They will invariably kill the wealth before creating it.”
While the stock has lost about a third of its value from a record high earlier this month, it is still up more than 900% since its market debut in October 2019 mainly because of its monopoly of online rail ticket bookings. The market value of IRCTC, which is not yet part of the MSCI India Index, was $9.77 billion at Thursday’s close, more than that of many members of the gauge, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.