Aptech Training found strength on Monday on reports that the proposal for stake sale in the company to SSI is very much on.

The optimism in fact seemed to shrug off the fact that the DRT II has restricted the company's promoter Atul Nishar from offloading or transferring his stake in the company.

By 10:45 IST, the scrip of Aptech Training surged 10.83% to Rs 32.75. It registered volumes of 85,505 shares on BSE so far. In the last 16 sessions between 16 January and 7 February 2003, the scrip of Aptech Training lost 33% to Rs 29.55 from Rs 44.15 on news that the sell-off deal has hit a roadblock.

Renewed buying materialised on the counter on news that the Aptech-SSI deal is expected to go through with all the promoters excluding Atul Nishar ready to sell their stake. SSI's board meeting is also scheduled for today where it is likely to consider investment opportunities in software development, education and content development. Earlier, there were reports that the deal between Aptech and SSI would be struck at Rs 46 per share and that SSI would entirely buy out Aptech Training.

The stock of the IT education company, in fact, received a setback following reports that the Debt Recovery Tribunal II, Chennai, had passed an interim direction restraining Atul Nishar (promoter of Aptech Training) from transferring or selling his stake in the company, following a case filed by the State Bank of Travancore against Apple Credit Corporation in May 2001, for defaulting on a Rs 20.75-crore loan.

Atul Nishar had stood guarantor to the loan extended to Apple Credit. Therefore, the DRT II has restricted Nishar from transferring or selling his stake in Aptech Training and Hexaware Technologies. With this order, there was a feeling in the market that the sell-off of Nishar's stake in Aptech Training would not be possible and would therefore stall overall stake sale plans. However, now the promoters other than Atul Nishar are believed to have expressed their willingness to offload their positions .

The total promoter holding in the company is at 27.7%, of which Atul Nishar has a small percentage.

The recently listed ATL commenced trading on the bourses on 24 September 2002, following the de-merger of erstwhile Aptech into two companies - Hexaware Technologies and ATL. The latter made its debut at Rs 45 per share on the BSE.

On 29 December 2002, the Bombay High Court granted its nod to the erstwhile Aptech's restructuring scheme involving the separation of the training and education business (Aptech Training) from the software business (Hexaware Technologies).

Simultaneously, Hexaware Technologies, a SEI CMM Level 5 software company (unlisted in India) with a focus on the US and European markets, was merged with Aptech (the software entity). The merged software entity was then called Hexaware Technologies

The shareholders of erstwhile Aptech had earlier approved the composite restructuring scheme at an extraordinary general meeting held on 27 September 2001. The restructuring came into effect from 1 April 2001. The paid-up capital got divided between the two companies Hexaware Technologies (merged software entity) and Aptech Training in a ratio of 40:60. For every 10 shares in the erstwhile Aptech, each shareholder got 4 equity shares of Hexaware Technologies and 6 new equity shares in ATL. The equity share capital of ATL now stands at Rs 18.14 crore.

For the third quarter ended 31 December 2002, ATL registered a net profit of Rs 1.76 crore (Rs 0.20 crore) on a 41% drop in net sales to Rs 36.86 crore (Rs 62.59 crore).