Shares of One 97 Communications fell 5% to the day’s low of Rs 385.90 on Thursday, witnessing their third successive decline and losses extending to 10%.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s resignation as the part-time non-executive chairman and board member at Paytm Payments Bank did not cut much ice with the investors who preferred to sell shares in hordes. Around 10 am, nearly 42.78 lakh shares were trading on the NSE.
The most recent blow has been Macqurie’s reiteration of an underperform rating on the counter for a price target of Rs 275. The Australian brokerage has taken adverse views on the counter on previous occasions as well.
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In the latest stock review, Macquarie said that Sharma is trying to salvage some value from PPBL and sending a message to the regulator that he is willing to give up control of the Paytm Payment’s Bank.
While the survival of PPBL is at stake, the banking regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will have to provide relaxations, the brokerage note said. “We don’t expect RBI to authorise any related- party transactions between Paytm and PPBL in the future,” it said.
While some lending partners have revealed that they are looking again at their relationship with Paytm, the company’s lending business could take a hit if partners scale down or terminate their relationships with Paytm, Macquaries said further.
Earlier, global brokerage firm UBS said in a note that Paytm will likely experience near-term financial impact on its business along with some permanent loss of business in FY25E.
“We expect Paytm to lose 5-7ppt of its 25% share in the payments industry, driven by loss of wallet (2-3ppt permanent loss) and the rest due to merchant/customer churn. We estimate net payments margin to decline to 6-7bp range from 7-9bp range, given loss of high-margin wallet business and likely easier terms to retain merchants,” it said.
UBS further stated, “Loan origination will likely be paused for most of Q4 and then only pick up post stabilisation of payments business in FY25E. We forecast loan disbursements to decline 14% YoY in FY25E. We model a smaller 18% decline in cloud and commerce in Q4 given less direct impact and 18% YoY growth in FY25E.”
UBS maintained its Neutral rating on Paytm and cut its target price to Rs 510 from Rs 650 earlier.
On Monday, One 97 announced that its associate entity Paytm Payments Bank has reconstituted its board of directors with the appointment of Ex-Central Bank of India Chairman Srinivasan Sridhar, retired IAS officer Debendranath Sarangi, former Executive Director of Bank of Baroda Ashok Kumar Garg, and Retd. IAS Rajni Sekhri Sibal. They have recently joined as Independent Directors.
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