2 mutual funds exit Paytm stock in March despite rally

DSP Mutual Fund sold its entire portfolio of 9,000 shares of Paytm, while UTI MF sold 1,10,000 shares of the fintech firm.

Other than Paytm shares, DSP MF sold Gland Pharma (6,000 shares), Firstsource Solutions (83,000 shares), and Aditya Birla Capital (1,40,000 shares). At the same time, DSP bought new shares of Kirloskar Oil, Power Grid, Varun Beverages, and SAIL.

Meanwhile, UTI MF also sold IRFC (24,24,000 shares), Rane Holdings (29,000 shares) and Prudent Corporate Advisory Services (1,85,000 shares). At the same time, UTI MF bought shares of Adani Wilmar and National Aluminium.

In Thursday’s trade, Paytm ended 0.4% higher at Rs 651 on BSE. On a year-to-date basis, the stock has surged over 22%, while it has risen over 12% in the last one month.

Domestic brokerage firm Yes Securities in a recent note said that Paytm is likely to post healthy sequential growth in revenue on the back of steady loan disbursement and new device addition.

On the back of expectations of good earnings performance by Paytm in the March quarters, Yes Securities maintained its Neutral rating on the fintech pioneer with an upgraded target price of Rs 700 (Earlier: Rs 600), which suggests an upside potential of 8% from the current market price of Rs 651.Dipan Mehta, Director of Elixir Equities, says Paytm has done pretty well and frankly their quarterly and monthly numbers also are very encouraging.

In a recent exchange filing, the company said it has achieved a new milestone in offline payments with the deployment of 6.8 million Paytm payment devices like Soundbox and PoS. In just one year, the company has gone to 6.8 million devices deployed from 2.9 million devices a year ago.

In the December quarter of FY23, Paytm achieved its milestone of operating profitability, much ahead of its September 2023 guidance. Paytm’s EBITDA before ESOP cost stood at Rs 31 crore with EBITDA before ESOP margin at 2% of revenues as compared to (27%) a year ago. The fintech giant’s revenue from operations increased by 42% YoY to Rs 2,062 crore in Q3FY23, driven by growth in its core payments business and sustained growth momentum in its credit business and commerce business.

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