TCNS Clothing's bad fitting

TCNS Clothing is currently the top loser on the BSE; the stock, which had closed on Friday at Rs.520.80, opened lower today at Rs.429.55 and went down further to Rs.418.05, which is not too far from its 52-week low of Rs.414.90.

On Friday, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd (ABFRL) on Friday said the company is acquiring a controlling stake in TCNS Clothing, the owner of leading ethnic brands W, Aurelia, Wishful, Folksong, and Elleven.

And following on this, ABFRL made a conditional open offer to acquire up to a 29% stake at Rs 503 per share from public shareholders and acquire the remaining stake from the founder promoters to reach an overall shareholding of 51%in TCNS for Rs.1650 crore.

The market is unhappy with the swap ratio – post acquiring, TCNS is to be merged into ABFRL and public shareholders of TCNS will receive 11 shares of ABFRL for every 6 shares that they hold in TCNS.

Based on the current market price or even that of Friday’s closing, shareholders of TCNS are obviously feeling shortchanged while it works in favor of ABFRL shareholders.