Is Dolly Khanna Selling Hawkins Cookers?

Hawkins Cooker boasts of a number of savvy investors. Dolly Khanna and her magic wand lead from the front while R Srinivasan of SBI MF, Basant Maheshwari and Megh Mansetta guard from the rear. These are loyal investors and they keep a red alert for all going-ons with the company.

Hawkins has tested everyone’s patience. Despite the raging bull market which has sent all sorts of stocks of dubious pedigree to stratospheric heights, Hawkins Cooker has obstinately refused to participate (Over the past two years, the stock has given a 75% return which is a relative under-performance given what the other mid-caps have delivered).

Yesterday, the stock plunged 10% to hit the lower circuit. Today also, the stock slumped nearly 5%. The volume of shares delivered was also inordinately high.

As usual, the MMB punters had their finger on the pulse of Hawkins. They blamed Bhram Vasudeva, the Chairman of the company and the other top brass for painting a gloomy picture of the future prospects at the recently concluded AGM. Vasudeva was quoted as saying that the Q2 growth would be around 8 – 10%, which apparently is much lower than the 25% that the punters were expecting. Vasudeva also apparently remained tight-lipped about future launches and measures to increase sales, which caused great disappointment amongst shareholders, according to the MMB punters, who attended the AGM.

One rumor doing the rounds is that Dolly Khanna has finally thrown in the towel and dumped/ pared her holdings in the stock.

If true, this would not be the first time that Dolly has sold Hawkins’ shares. She held a truckload of 1,59,302 shares in June 2009. She brought it down to 1,28,876 by December 2011. As of June 2014, she held only 75,290 shares, which is less than half of her peak holding.

The move, if true, would also not be surprising. Dolly Khanna has tasted enormous success with her latest stock picks, Avanti Feeds and RSS Software. While Avanti Feeds is up 600% YOY, RS Software is up 400% YOY. Her other stocks such as Liberty Shoes, Cera Sanitaryware etc are also doing well, with 200%+ YOY gains.

Dolly also has a track record of shuffling her stocks. She gives her stocks a long rope to perform but her patience is not infinite. When her patience runs out, Dolly does not hesitate to put the stock on the chopping block. Stocks like Emkay Global, Vimta Labs and Styrolution ABS (India) have suffered this ignominy in the past. Even some winning stocks like Amara Raja Batteries and Relaxo Footwears have been shown the door by Dolly to make way for new incumbents like Avanti Feeds and RS Software.

So, it is a reasonable probability that Dolly may have decided to shift her funds from Hawkins Cookers to some other winning stock.

Of course, you must remember that all this talk about Dolly Khanna selling Hawkins’ shares is based on pure speculation and hearsay. We will have to wait till the end of September to know whether any of it is true or not.