Course Correction

Strides pharma science attributes its underwhelming performance to a confluence of headwinds and execution challenges.

- E. Kumar Sharma

COMPANIES MAY like to believe their stock’s price movement on bourses is not a true reflection of their business performance, but for investors it is still a barometer. This is why it was hard to ignore Strides Pharma Science, which posted the biggest fall in average market capitalisation 40.2 per cent between October 01, 2017 and September 30, 2018 as compared to the same period last year. Result: its rank in BT 500 slipped from 209 in 2017 to 341 in 2018.

BT reached out to Arun Kumar, the group CEO and Managing Director, to understand the reasons behind the slide. “While we don’t comment specifically on the company’s performance on the bourses,” a company spokesperson replied, “we believe that it is a combination of factors.” He explained that pharma companies with exposure to the US have been affected over the past two years. “Our performance in FY 17/18 was also tepid mainly due to partnership business in the US getting impacted by pricing pressures and loss of market share (something that the company had shared in its commentary released as part of the FY 2017/18 results on May 18, 2018).” The company’s commodity business of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) was carved out and is now listed separately under Solara Active Pharma Sciences and “hence the current market price does not reflect the value of the demerged API business,” the spokesperson added.