Ashish Kacholia has increased his stake in this small-cap stock

This stock is India’s largest private bitumen player

Ashish Kacholia is among the top investors in India. He publicly holds a total of 40 stocks and has an equity portfolio size of Rs 1833.6 crore.

Ashish Kacholia is known as the 'Big Whale' by the media. He generally avoids public appearances. Kacholia is famously known to pick hidden gems from the small to the midcap range for long-term investments. He co-founded Hungama Ltd with Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in 1999, and later, started focusing on managing his portfolio. He had invested early in multibagger stocks like APL Apollo Tubes Ltd, Apollo Tricoat, Birlasoft, Vaibhav Global, NIIT Ltd, etc.

According to the latest September quarter filings, he bought a new position in Agarwal Industrial Corporation Ltd. He purchased 3721,28 equity shares of Agarwal Industrial Corporation Ltd, worth Rs 25.3 crore. With this purchase, Kacholia now owns a 2.6% stake in the company.

Agarwal Industrial Corporation Ltd is the largest player in the private sector with over 25% market share in domestic bitumen & bituminous products. It is an integrated petrochemical company focussed on Bitumen. Bitumen is dense, highly viscous, petroleum-based hydrocarbon that is obtained as a residue during the distillation of crude oil and used in around 90-95% of Indian roads. The company also acts as an infra-ancillary for the transport and logistics segment.

About the shareholding pattern, the promoters own 62.15% ownership in the company, non-institutional investors hold 34.28% and the remaining 3.57% is by FIIs. There are no promoter-pledged shares.

The company has a market capitalisation of Rs 512 crore and is trading at a PE multiple of 16.15x. The stock has a 52-week high and low at Rs 745.9 and Rs 311, respectively.

In the last twelve months, the stock has given multibagger returns to its investors. The stock jumped by 113% from Rs 319.6 on 28th October 2021 to Rs 680.65 on 28th October 2022.