India's Medplus eyes best day ever on Credit Suisse upgrade

MedPlus Health Services

14/11/2022 07:34

** Medplus Health Services's shares  MEDP.NS  rise as much
as 18.3%, record intra-day pct gain since listing in Dec. 2021
    ** Credit Suisse upgrades India's No.2 pharmacy chain to
"outperform" from "neutral," on expectations of margin growth
    ** CS was previously the only one among the 7 brokerages
covering MEDP to not rate it the equivalent of "buy" or "strong
buy", per Refinitiv data
    ** CS says MEDP's near-term gross margin to benefit from
strong network expansion, lower discounts, and increase in value
share of higher-margin private labels
    ** Says large store additions in non-metros bodes well as
MEDP faces lesser competition there
    ** Over 71% of stores opened between Sept '21 to March '22
achieved break-even within 6 months, Co said last week, when it
reported 68% drop in Q2 profit
    ** About 1.3 mln shares traded, 17x the 30-day avg of 74,126
shares
    ** Stock last up 10.2%, cutting YTD losses to ~38%
 (Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru)
 ((Sethuraman.NR@thomsonreuters.com; (+91 8061822737); Reuters
Messaging: nallur.sethuraman.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))