IRB Infra shares jump 4% after company reports strong toll collection in March

Shares of IRB Infrastructure Developers jumped more than 4 per cent during Tuesday's session after the company reported strong toll collection for the month of March 2023. The collections included both its subsidiaries and joint ventures of the company.

According to the exchange filing, IRB Infra reported a 21 per cent rise on a year-on-year (YoY) basis in the total collection to Rs 369.99 crore for the month ended on March 31, 2023, from Rs 306.66 crore in the same month last year.

On a month-on-month (MoM) comparison, the toll collection rose more than 5 per cent from Rs 351.75 crore in February 2023. The highway construction company has a major presence in the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) space.

The entities under IRB Infrastructure Trust logged a 40 per cent increase in toll collection at Rs 1,930.85 crore while the company’s subsidiaries raked in Rs 1,769.06 crores in toll collection, a rise of 5 percent YoY.

Following the announcement, shares of IRB Infrastructure Developers jumped about 4 per cent to Rs 26.90 on Tuesday. The stock settled at Rs 25.88 on Monday. The company was commanding a market capitalization of little more than Rs 16,125 crore.

Vehicular traffic momentum is picking up and is above pre-Covid-19 levels. Mumbai-Pune could have one final tariff revision in FY24E said Ganga Expressway execution is progressing as per schedule, said Antique Stock Broking.

"IRB’s order book at the beginning of 4QFY23 stood at Rs 7,900 crore and it is confident of order inflows of Rs 6,000-8,000 in FY24E. With capital infusion and BOT project wins, traffic growth remains the key earnings driver," it added.

IRB Infra's shares were split into a 1:10 ratio in February 2023. The corporate action was announced in January 2023. IRB Infra has an asset base of over Rs 62,000 crore in 10 states across the parent company and two InvITs. The company has been involved in constructing, operating and maintaining around 16,000-lane km highways pan-India.

At present, IRB group’s project portfolio, including private and public InvIT, has 23 road projects that include 18 BOT (build, operate, and transfer), 1 TOT (toll-operate-transfer) and 4 HAM (hybrid annuity model) projects.

Another brokerage firm HDFC Securities has an 'add' rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 31. Non-road players outperformed their inflow guidance, while road players need to catch up on missed guidance, it said.

"The NHAI had set a target of awarding 6,500 km in FY23, of which it awarded about 3,750 Km at an NHAI cost of Rs 1 lakh crore. Ordering seems to have split over to FY24 with our checks suggesting Rs 35,000 crore of bids expected to be awarded during early H1FY24,' it added.

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