Rakesh Jhunjhunwala buys 1.05% in Jet Airways; shares up 11%

Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala on Friday picked up 1.05% stake in Jet Airways for Rs 50.52 crore through an open market transaction.

According to the bulk deals data available with NSE, Jhunjhunwala's RARE Enterprises acquired 11,95,000 shares or 1.05 per cent stake in the private airline .

The shares were bought at an average price of Rs 422.76, valuing the transaction at Rs 50.52 crore.

However, the seller(s) of the shares could not be ascertained immediately.

On Thursday, Jhunjhunwala picked up a substantial number of shares in the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of InterGlobe Aviation, which runs low-cost airline Indigo.

Last year, he had also purchased shares in another aviation company SpiceJet.

Following the transaction, shares of Jet Airways on Friday surged by as much as 11.28 per cent to close at Rs 445.40 apiece on the NSE.

During the July-September quarter, Jet Airways posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 83 crore, against a net loss of Rs 42.8 crore a year ago, helped by healthy growth in passenger traffic coupled with improved aircraft utilisation by the airline.

Also, total sales grew to Rs 5,504 crore during the quarter under review as compared to Rs 5,092 crore in the same period last year.