Rakesh Jhunjhunwala picks up additional stake in Aptech

Ace investor and trader Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has picked up 7 lakh shares in IT training firm Aptech, amounting to 1.38 percent of the company's equity, adding to the 45.28 percent stake he, his family and firm hold in it.

The purchase, done yesterday via a block deal, has resulted in the stock hitting a 52-week high of Rs 94, though it seems the market had got wind earlier that something was brewing -- the stock is up over 35 percent in the past six trading sessions.

Aptech is one of Jhunjhunwala's holdings that have not performed well and it is different in that it is the only firm the billionnaire investor chose to actively manage instead of being a passive investor: he is the company's chairman. He first picked up 10 percent stake in Aptech in July 2005 at Rs 56 per share and gradually upped it. (The stock saw a stratospheric Rs 400 per share price in 2007 before falling back to earth.)

Fundamentally, the stock's financial are nothing to write home about. Its margins have receded off a five-year peak of 33.8 percent to 12.3 percent, profit has fallen from Rs 76 crore to Rs 10 crore in the same period while sales too have seen a dip. (Rival NIIT, which trades at 2.5 times marketcap has sales 5 times of Aptech and 7 times profit.)