KPIT Cummins Infosystems, that's proved a firm feature of the market of late, climbed 3.4% to Rs 198.80 on BSE on Friday.

The scrip of the Pune-based software company and the erstwhile KPIT Infosystems clocked volumes of 920,000 shares on BSE (high for the scrip). From a recent low of Rs 161.05 on 10 January 2003, the scrip has surged 23.4% in the last five trading sessions to the current Rs 198.80.

The stock has been buoyant over the last few months on the back of optimism about the merger of Cummins Infotech with KCIL, which the Bombay High Court cleared recently. With this merger, KCIL will gain an important customer in Cummins Inc., USA and a stronger presence in the market for manufacturing verticals. Upon this merger, the company will be given the status of "Preferred Vendor" of the Cummins group for its software and information technology outsourcing needs in certain designated areas. It will also be able to offer services to Cummins' worldwide joint ventures, vendors and customers. In addition to this, the company also expects that it may get a large share of embedded software outsourcing by Cummins Inc.

Operators too have spruced up activity in the stock of late after it was included in the list for derivatives trading. NSE has said that it will commence derivatives trading in additional 25 stocks from 31 January 2003. The stock has seen a surge in trading volumes of late, with average trading voulmes in the last four trading sessions (including today) on BSE to the tune of 1.11 million shares. The scrip had earlier witnessed high volumes way back in September-October 2002.

KPIT Cummins Infosystems has registered consolidated revenues of Rs 18.81 crore for the quarter ended December 2002. For the nine months ended December 2002, sales stood at Rs 53.90 crore and OPM was 11.4%. For Q3 December 2002, KCIL reported PAT of Rs 1.64 crore. For the first nine moths, the PAT stood at Rs 3.17 crore. The results are of the merged entity and therefore are not comparable.