Amitabh Bachchan, the doyen of Bollywood, has a mixed track record as an investor. On the one hand, he has a super-duper multibagger stock in Just Dial. In a brilliant strategic move, Amitabh (who is/was the brand ambassador of Just Dial) acquired 62,794 shares at par for a paltry consideration of Rs 6.27 lakh. Today, that holding is worth a fabulous Rs 9 crore.
On the other hand, Amitabh Bachchan has been gullible enough to trust his hard-earned money to a junkyard stock like Birla MedSpa. That worthless stock has no takers even at the princely price of Rs. 0.46.
Now, the intriguing part is that Amitabh Bachchan has gone ahead and entrusted a fabulous sum of Rs. 1.21 crore in buying 1.1 lakh shares in a company called Stampede Capital Ltd. He bought the stock in a bulk deal on 27.05.2014.
Stampede Capital is a micro-cap stock with a market capitalisation of Rs. 255 crore. It is Hyderabad based and calls itself “A global financial technology house and Underwriters of global derivative markets”. It is owned (58.37%) by Venkat S Meenavalli, who appears to be a software developer. The website has some information according to which Stampede Cloud Services is said to have handled “5 Billion USD transactions”. Stampede is also said to have launched “1 Terra Hash Mining Rig for Bitcoin”, whatever that means. Stampede also issued a press release which talks about running “financial cloud solutions for forex and equity markets with more than 100 servers”.
The stock has been on fire in the recent past. In just 3 months it has doubled (107% gain). In the last one month, it has given a 48% return. In the last week, the return is 28%.
So, it does appear that something is cooking in Stampede Capital. It is obvious that Amitabh Bachchan would have no knowledge of “Bitcoin Mining” or “financial cloud” or any of that jargon. He has probably got hold of some information that Stampede will make some big-bang announcement soon and he has bought the stock in anticipation of that news.
Meanwhile, the Q4FY14 results were not inspiring. Stampede Capital reported a consolidated sales turnover of Rs 6.33 crore and a net loss of Rs 3.63 crore for the quarter. In Q4FY13, Stampede had a sales turnover of Rs 4.70 crore and net profit of Rs 1.75 crore. So, while the sales turnover has zoomed, the profitability has taken a beating.
What we have to now see is whether Amitabh Bachchan’s investment in Stampede Capital goes the Just Dial way or the Birla MedSpa way. Any guesses?
Venkat menavalli owns Northgate technologies /bharat student.com
No doubt…Birla Medspa way….
Remember RJ’s comments “..I never buy software & telecom stocks because i never understood their business..”
Given the fact Amitabh is filthy rich and for him this 1Crore is not a big deal which he can get back in any other advertisement. But poor retail investors who follows his act will burnt their fingers.
Hi arjun bhaiya – In India all news first shared with some people and then it went public. Recent example – Incease in Ranbaxy volume before deal announcmnt…Increase in TV18 nd Network18 volumes two-three days before news went public. So it is a ugly corporate and Operators world. Apart from above co. He also back Ujjas energy …a small listed co. Based in Indore …doubled now.
shares of multibagger needed