Wires and Cables stocks lose $3.6 billion on UltraTech’s $200 million foray

Shares of India’s five wires and cables companies – Polycab India Ltd., Havells India Ltd., KEI Industries Ltd., Finolex Cables Ltd. and RR Kabel Ltd. have lost over ₹33,000 crore ($3.8 billion) in market capitalisation on Thursday, February 27, after India’s largest cement company, UltraTech Cement, announced a foray into the segment.Shares of Polycab and RR Kabel ended 19% lower each, while those of Havells India closed 6% lower. KEI Industries shares fell 21%, while those of Finolex Cables also ended with losses of 6%.

Polycab lost over ₹16,000 crore in market capitalisation, while KEI Industries’ 21% fall has led to a ₹7,632 crore erosion in its market capitalisation. Here is a look at how much individual companies lost in today’s session.

Stock	Market Cap Lost (₹ Crore)
Polycab	16,334.5
Industries are located in Industries	7,632.7
Havells India	6,059.3
RR Table	2,487
Finolex Cables	858

Also Read: Polycab, KEI Industries share price crash: Mutual funds have the highest exposure to which stock?UltraTech intends to invest ₹1,800 crore ($200 million) in order to build a cables and wire facility in Gujarat’s Bharuch. UltraTech’s $200 million foray has also resulted in a wipe-out of nearly $2 billion of its own market capitalisation, as the stock shed over 5% post the announcement.

In separate interactions with CNBC-TV18, both KEI Industries and RR Kabel downplayed the impact of UltraTech’s announcement, saying that it will take a while for the Aditya Birla Group company to establish its brand presence and begin commercial operations.

With this fall, shares of these cables and wires companies have declined between 30% to 50% from their respective peaks. Despite this, many are still trading above their five-year average price-to-earnings multiple. You can read more on that here.

“I still feel that these cable companies are trading at very rich multiples considering it is a type of cyclical business and there is volatility in earnings, raw material costs do impact their operating profit margins. But if there is a correction, one could look at these companies if you are fundamentally very comfortable with evaluations. But by and large our preferences for consumer-oriented businesses or consumer appliance companies and within that Havells particularly comes to mind which has got a cable business but has a solid air conditioning as well as other home appliances business. And if that valuation comes at reasonable levels, it could be more appropriate than some of the other pureplay cable companies,” Dipan Mehta of Elixir Equities said.