HAL Shares In Deep Red After Air Force Chief A P Singh Comments On Delayed Delivery Of Tejas Mk1A Fighter Jets

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited or HAL, shares tumbled on Wednesday, February 12. This came to pass after the chief of the Indian Air Force made certain remarks that negatively impacted the company's prospects.

Air Force Chief Raps HAL

Many factors play a role in the happenings and developments in the equity markets within a trading day. However, comments from active defence/armed forces personnel and the subsequent reaction to the same at Dalal Street are not too common.

In his remarks, the Indian Air Force chief, Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh, PVSM, AVSM, said that he is not too confident about the company and its deliverables. His emphasis was primarily on the timely deliveries of the Tejas Mk1A fighter jets.

Not Confident

In his remark, he said, "I can only tell you our requirements and what our worries are. You have to alleviate those worries and make us more confident. At the moment, I am just not confident of HAL, which is a very, very wrong thing to happen,” Air Chief Marshal Singh told the top brass of the company."

The company shares have declined by over 3.5 per cent in the intraday trade today.

The Bengaluru-based HAL is a publicly owned company. Underscoring this fact, Singh added, "“HAL is our own company. We all have worked there. I have worked there. I have also served in HAL as a temporary pilot and, of course, very closely at NFTC (National Flight Test Centre). But I find that we are just not in mission mode. Everything is 'ho jayega,”

HAL Shares Suffer

When we take a look at the company shares on Wednesday's intraday trade, the stock price of HAL started the day on Rs 3,639.05, behind its previous day's closing.

The shares hit the low mark of Rs 3,470.05, it recovered a little from there while continuing to trade in red.

At the time of writing, the HAL shares' cumulative decline for the day stood at 3.27 per cent or Rs 119.45, taking the overall of the company shares to Rs 3,530.00 per piece.

In response, HAL HAL CMD DK Sunil conveyed his appreciation for the concerns raised by the airforce chief. He also promised that HAL is ready to resolve all issues concerning Tejas.