Taib Securities has reduced its holding in Kaashyap Technologies by 7.6% ahead of its open offer to acquire 20% additional stake in the Chennai-based IT consulting and services firm. Taib had become the single largest shareholder when the GDRs converted into equity shares in December last year representing as much as 32.37% stake.
Originally promoted by A Venkatramani, Usha Venkatramani, Radiant Systems Inc.(USA) besides Venu Myneni, Vinod Koduru and Raghuram Tandra in 2002, Radiant Systems Inc, Venu Myneni and Vinod Koduru exited the firm. This made the Venkatramanis the sole promoters of the company who held a small stake with a large chunk of shares of the company in the public domain. The shares itself have been trading like a penny stock.
Taib (international brokerage arm of Bahrain-based TAIB Bank) currently owns 24.71% (after selling multiple chunks of shares since late December’09) in Kaashyap and has stated that it is not interested in taking over the management of the company and sees itself just as a financial investor. If the open offer is fully successful, it would end up owning as much as 44.71% stake.
The open offer made at just 73 paise, would cost Taib Rs 9.59 crore(~$2.16 million) and is slated to be open between May 24-June 12. The stock is currently trading at Rs 0.63 a piece, less than half of its 52 week high or 15.8% lower than the offer price.
Kaashyap has a market cap of a little less than $10 million and closed year ended March’09 with net loss of Rs 8.3 crore on revenues of Rs 40 crore.
