RR Kabel, KEI Industries, Polycab shares sink up to 8%; Nuvama lists preferred picks  

Shares of cables and wires players Polycab India Ltd, RR Kabel, KEI Industries, Finolex Cables, Universal Cables and Dynamic Cables plunged up to 8% on Friday amid positive sentiment in the broader market. The selling pressure in the cables and wires industry came after The Aditya Birla Group said it has entered the wires and cables market with the launch of Ultravolt, marking its fourth new business foray in the past three years.

Shares of cables and wires industry leader Polycab Ltd plunged 5.85% to Rs 8308.55 against the previous close of Rs 8825. Market cap of the firm fell to Rs 1.25 lakh crore. Another cables and wires player KEI Industries lost 8.25% to Rs 4855.75 . Market cap of the firm slipped to Rs 46,825 crore.

RR Kabel shares too fell 5% to Rs 2475 with the market cap falling to Rs 28,097 crore.

Finolex Cables stock too slipped 5% to Rs 1210 on BSE. Market cap of the firm stood at Rs 19,117 crore. Shares of other industry players such as Universal Cables and Dynamic Cables plunged 5.35% and 7.90%, respectively.

Brokerage Nuvama said the new launch sets ambition of becoming one of the top two C&W players and the second-largest wires player by capacity.

This is a significant new announcement (implies aggressive posturing in terms of capacity additions, portfolio and distribution expansion) and could likely drive interim de-rating for the C&W industry.

The new cables and wires brand housed under UltraTech Cement Limited plans to reach over 100,000 retailers, while leveraging more than 5,000 UltraTech Building Solutions (UBS) outlets to further expand product availability.

The company currently has an installed capacity of 1 million km and plans to scale this to 3.5–4.0mn km.

"Of Rs 1800 crore total planned capex, Rs 880 crore has already been incurred, underscoring the company’s strong commitment to rapidly scaling its presence in the C&W market," said Nuvama.

"To achieve the top-two position, we estimate that UltraTech could eventually need to invest Rs 5000 crore – Rs 6000 crore (assuming an asset turn of 5–6x), substantially above its initial Rs 1800 crore investment guidance, " added Nuvama.

The company has ample financial flexibility to fund such expansion. UltraTech generated Rs 15,320 crore of operating cash flow in FY26, which provides significant headroom to deploy capital toward scaling Ultravolt.

The brokerage belives that C&W stocks shall be under pressure in the near term on UltraTech Cement's stated intent of becoming the no. 2  player in the C&W segment.

On a positive note, Nuvama said, that C&W companies are well poised for healthy revenue/PAT growth in the near term (copper and aluminium prices up 40–50% YoY in Q2/Q3FY27) as well as in the medium term (domestic and global power T&D, solar and data centre capacity additions and so on) and should provide support on downside.

Nuvama mentioned Polycab and KEI Industries as preferred picks in the industry.