Agri seems to be the new favourite theme for investors. At a time when other sectors have seen demand disruptions due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown, Rallis India, a crop care company, has surged more than 100 percent. The stock has risen nearly 141 percent in the last four months.

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The stock had fallen nearly 30 percent in the first three months of 2020. However, it rebounded and jumped as much as 140.9 percent from its 52-week low of Rs 127 hit on March 24, 2020. Overall in 2020, this stock has surged over 70 percent.

The Tata Chemicals subsidiary reported a 53 percent growth in consolidated profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 92 crore during the first quarter of 2020-21. The company’s PAT stood at Rs 60 crore in April-June quarter of 2019-20.

Meanwhile, the consolidated revenue rose 6 percent to Rs 663 crore for the quarter as against Rs 623 crore in the same quarter of FY20.

According to Rallis India Managing Director and CEO Sanjiv Lal, with the timely arrival of the monsoons and positive farmer sentiment, agricultural activity has picked up well which is a big positive for the company.

“We have registered a 13.5 percent revenue growth during Q1 for domestic crop care business on account of robust demand and a 3 percent revenue growth in seeds sales over the previous year despite the challenges faced,” he added.

Going forward, the company expects domestic demand to remain buoyant for crop care products, and exports to gradually pick up as well, he said.

Apart from the stellar Q1 results, the sentiment was also lifted after ace-investor Rakesh Jhujhnwala raised his stake in the company by 0.38 percent during the June quarter.

Jhunjhunwala purchased an additional 7.25 lakh equity shares to raise his stake to 10.31 percent during the April-June period. Jhunjhunwala owns stake through his two accounts, Rakesh Radheshyam Jhunjhunwala and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

Rallis is one of the country's leading crop care companies with 2,300 distributors and more than 40,000 retail counters, covering more than 80 percent of India's districts.