Ashish Kacholia sells 0.56% stake in Delta Corp through bulk deal

Ashish Kacholia has sold stake in Delta Corp Ltd through bulk deals on Monday. The ace investor has offloaded about 15 lakh shares 0.56% in the company at Rs 144.65 apiece, according to exchange data.

Kacholia earned Rs 21.69 crore from the sale.

It is unclear how much Kacholia held prior to the stake sale in Delta Corp. It will most likely be below 1%. The stake sale comes after the casino operator received a notice from the government for a tax liability.

Delta Corp shares tumbled as much as 17% during the day on the notice to pay tax of Rs 11,140 crore along with interest and penalty for the period July 2017 to March 2022.

The tax payment notice to the company exceeds its current market capitalisation of Rs 3,829 crore.

The GST amount claimed is based on the gross bet value of all games played at the casinos during the relevant period, Delta said, adding that a show cause notice will be issued to the company if it failed to pay.

The tax notice comes at a time when the company, valued at over $566 million, is already facing heat over the recent move in July by the country's GST Council to impose a 28% indirect tax on the money collected by gaming companies from customers.

As per the filing to the exchanges, the alleged shortfall relates to Delta Corp and its two subsidiaries, Highstreet Cruises and Entertainment Pvt Ltd and Delta Pleasure Cruise Company Pvt Ltd.

While the total outstanding for Delta Corp stands at over Rs 628 crore, it is at Rs Rs 3,289.94 crore for Highstreet Cruises and Rs 1765.21 crore for Delta Pleasure Cruise Company.

The stock has been a market laggard and given negative returns of over 25% in the past 12 months as against 15% returns given by the Nifty during this period.

Technically, analysts say the stock has entered a bearish trap with the Relative Strength hitting oversold territory.

"From now on, Rs 170 becomes the critical hurdle where more sell-offs could emerge. The stock is slipping towards Rs 115 to Rs 100 levels. Death Cross has fuelled more bearishness in the stock, posing a cautious outlook for the short-to-medium term," said Avdhut Bagkar, Derivatives & Technical Research at StoxBox.