A screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation has been doing the rounds, which shows a digital marketing agency approaching a finfluencer to publish posts that promote Poonawalla Fincorp.
The post has since been taken down, but Moneycontrol has confirmed with its sources that finfluencers were approached to post in favour of the company for a fee.
Several finfluencers were found to be publishing text that promoted the company around the same time, with one of them even publishing the text provided by the agency word-for-word.
Three texts were sent as suggestions to finfluencers and the following screenshots show how closely they were followed by some posts on X.
The first text suggestion sent by the agency: "Poonawalla Fincorp is enjoying some good times with the current stats. Now Motilal Oswal lights up green for the company."
The second suggestion: "Poonawalla Fincorp's brief Q2 results: Rising AUM, improved asset quality, best-in-industry net NPA. What more could any investor expect?"
T Brahmachary later reached out to Moneycontrol and said that he has never taken money for any of his tweets. In this particular instance, on Poonawalla Fincorp, he got a part of the tweet's text from an unknown number and that he added the rest.
When asked for the unknown number from which he received the replicated part of the post, he said that he has deleted everything with regard to this and that, if he does find the number, he will forward it to Moneycontrol.
The third suggestion: "As per industry experts, Poonawalla Fincorp is the best choice for investors, why not? I mean just look at their numbers, the company is constantly on the rise and the profitability is increasing."
Most posts have since been taken down.
Moneycontrol has written to the company, and this article will be updated if their response comes in.
The stock of the NBFC has been on a downward trend since August, and, after its second-quarter results announcement on October 20, it fell sharply — by nearly 7 percent to nearly Rs 350 — in three trading sessions. Then, the stock recovered by nearly 3 percent to nearly Rs 360 on October 27 — a day after the social media posts that carried the texts given by the agency were published.
In the September quarter, the company reported a 555 percent jump in its consolidated profit after tax (PAT) to Rs 854.61 crore from Rs 130.44 crore a year ago.
Its revenue from operations was Rs 738.65 crore, a rise of 62 percent from Rs 455.21 crore a year ago.
For the September quarter, the non-banking financial company's (NBFC) gross non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at 1.36 percent and net NPAs at 0.72 percent.
Also read: Pump and Dump 101: How to make a stock trend in 7 steps
One of the texts shared by the digital marketing agency asked finfluencers to add the fact that Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd (MOFSL) has given a ‘buy’ rating for the stock.
MOFSL reiterated its ‘buy’ rating in a report on October 22, with analysts optimistic about consumer and small business finance – the segments targeted by the NBFC. According to them, the company can maintain a net interest margin (NIM) of ~10 percent over FY24-FY25E. They have modelled the “benign credit costs” of ~0.6 percent in FY24.
“We increase our FY24/FY25E EPS by 2 percent/4 percent to factor in higher AUM (assets under management) growth and lower credit costs. Strong leadership teams across functions, realignment of customer and product segments, and focus on leveraging technology/analytics position PFL well to build scale and deliver superior risk-adjusted returns. We reiterate our BUY rating with a target price of INR450 (premised on 3.3x Sep’25E BVPS),” they added in the report.
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