Paytm shares fall nearly 2% after board approves share buyback plan- Should you buy, sell or hold-

Paytm shares fall nearly 2% after board approves share buyback plan: Should you buy, sell or hold?

One97 Communications Ltd shares, the parent company of Paytm, fell 1.82% on Wednesday after the board approved the share buyback plan at the maximum price of Rs 810 per share, totalling Rs 850 crore. The share buyback will occur in the open market through the stock exchanges’ order-matching mechanism. Based on the minimum and maximum buyback price, the indicative maximum number of shares bought back by the company would be 10,493,827.

One 97 Communications Ltd shares were trading 9.80 points lower at Rs 529.70. Interestingly, the shares touched a 52-week high of Rs 1,553.75 on the same day the previous year. It has fallen more than 64% in the past year and over 25% in the last three months. At the current market price, it has a total market capitalization of Rs 34,590.04 crore. It touched an intraday low of Rs 525.60 and a high of Rs 548.95.

“Looking at the monetisation opportunities in our core payment and credit business, we feel confident to generate healthy revenues and cash flows to invest in sales, marketing and technology… I believe that a buyback at this stage will be immensely beneficial for our stakeholders and will drive long-term shareholder value,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO – Paytm.

Earlier on Monday this week, Morgan Stanley set a Price Target of Rs 695 after Paytm declared its monthly results. “The merchant payment volumes (GMV) growth remains healthy, though it moderated on a YoY basis versus last month. Average monthly transacting users (MTU) was steady and growth sustained at 32% YoY versus last month. Loans disbursed of Rs 32 billion grew by 6% MoM, helped by improving ticket size, whereas the devices deployed rose to 5.5 million against 5.1 million in October 2022,” the research firm said.

Analysts at ICICI Securities maintained a ‘BUY’ rating for the Paytm stock at a target price of Rs 1,285 and believe that it should start generating free cash flow (FCF) in the next 12-18 months. “Paytm has exceeded expectations in the past few quarters and added that the company remains “ahead of the guided timeline to achieve operating profitability,” said Kunal Shah of ICICI Securities.