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Mumbai, Jan. 30 News of Spice Group’s interest in acquiring a majority stake in Satyam Computer sent up the share price of Spice Communications by more than 100 per cent during intra-day trade on the bourses on Friday.

It touched an intra-day high of Rs 57.4 on the BSE, which is 109 per cent higher than its previous day’s close of Rs 21.4. It closed up 81.21 per cent at Rs 47.75.

On Thursday, the Spice Group Chairman, Mr B.K. Modi, announced that Spice Innovation is interested in acquiring 51 per cent stake in Satyam.

“The rise in Spice Communications price is quite staggering as Mr Modi has almost totally exited Spice Communications. He has sold his share to Idea Cellular. So there is no need for the scrip to surge to such high levels. Either the market has got it wrong this time around or there is something that is not available on the public domain that only a few people know,” said an analyst with a domestic brokerage.

“It is unexplainable. The rise is unwarranted as the fundamentals of the company do not change in a single day and there is no development to support such a price movement,” said Mr V.K. Sharma of Anagram Stockbroking.

Marketmen said that there is something suspicious as the total traded quantity of Spice Communications is much higher than the free-float available in the market.

A total of two crore shares were traded on both the BSE and NSE on Friday while the stocks’ two-week average was mere 5,709 shares. “There is definitely something at play here,” said an analyst.

“There is definitely something suspicious the way the scrip went up today. With the public shareholding being lower than the free-float, there is indeed something very doubtful of the share price movement. One would obviously expect some kind of manipulation which has taken place,” said the head of research at a stock broking firm.

Spice Mobile was locked at the upper circuit limit of 10 per cent at Rs 10.15 on Friday on BSE.

The share price of Satyam rose 8.43 per cent to close at Rs 54.05, while that of Idea Cellular rose 3.75 per cent on the BSE on Friday.

Foreign institutional investor Fidelity bought shares of Satyam for the third day on Friday through the bulk deal route.

It bought 58.6 lakh shares at Rs.50.9 a share, which will now bring the total number of shares purchased by Fidelity through bulk deals to 2.67 crore. This amounts to a total of Rs 142.5 crore. Fidelity’s total stake in Satyam now stands at nearly 6.8 per cent.

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