Delta Corp, the only listed leading hospitality and casino company in India, shares faced a slump of 9 per cent to INR 165.15 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in the intra-day trade on June 30, Thursday.
It was down by 11 per cent from the day’s high as the taxation on casinos remains uncertain. The report of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on online gaming, casinos and horse racing was referred by the GST Council to the GoM again upon reservations expressed by Goa, which relies heavily on casino revenues.
Goa’s Finance Minister who is a member of the GST Council and GoM wants to hold more discussion regarding the GST rates being applicable to casinos. He requested for both horse racing and online gaming to be reassessed.
The GoM recommended a 28 per cent GST levy on skill gaming and equated them to gambling. The revised report should be ready by July 15 and would be looked at by the council in its upcoming meeting in August.
As of now in June, the Delta stock price has seen a decline of 24 per cent after their investor Rakhesh Jhunjhunwala sold a portion of his stake in the company through the open market. It slumped to a price of INR 162.10 on June 16, the lowest in 52 weeks. The S&P BSE Sensex went down by 4 per cent this month.
Earlier in June, Jhunjhunwala had sold 2.15 per cent of his stake in Delta Corp via block deals. He sold the shares at a price of INR 167.17 per share, which added to INR 96 crore. Following the transaction, the ace investor, along with his wife Rekha, holding in the gaming corporation declined to 1.25 per cent shares from 3.36 per cent.
On a different note, HDFC Mutual Fund said that its schemes have raised the shareholding in the Indian hospitality and gaming corporation by 2.15 per cent as of June 10, which sums up the holding to 9.21 per cent of the paid-up equity share capital of Delta Corp.
