The stock of BHEL gained sharply on Monday at Rs 2,319.80 against Friday's close of Rs 2,269.30 ahead of its third quarter financial performance announcement. The company is scheduled to announce its quarterly numbers on Thursday, which market participants expect to be `robust'.

According to analysts tracking the industry, BHEL is likely to benefit from the Government's move to increase investments in the power sector for the 11th Five-Year Plan period by four-fold (to about Rs 5 lakh crore).

Besides the company's current healthy order-book position, its recent technology transfer agreement with Alstom would enable it to bid for the ultra mega projects proposed in the 11th Five-Year Plan.

However, it faces competition from Chinese and Korean players to whom it has lost out on earlier bids. Also, there is expectation in some quarters that the company may soon consider bonus and stock-split issues.

It may be mentioned that the company had announced in July last year that its board would consider these issues. But later it informed the BSE that "the board of directors of the company at its meeting held on August 8, 2006 discussed the matter of split/issue of bonus shares and has not taken any decision in this regard."

K.S. Badri Narayanan

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