Shares of 3i Infotech Ltd surged over 19% in the intraday trade after the company said that it has pre-paid its principal outstanding debt amounting to Rs 19.5 crore. The shares of 3i Infotech rose as much as 19.29% to a 52-week high of Rs 6.8 before settling up 17.54% at Rs 6.7 on NSE while the stock rose 19.12% and hit a 52-week high of Rs 6.79 before closing up 16..84% at Rs 6.66 on BSE. “We wish to inform that 3i Infotech Limited (‘the Company’) has pre-paid Rs 19.5 crores of its principal outstanding debt,” 3i Infotech said in an exchange filing. Due to this, heavy trading volume was witnessed in the shares of 3i Infotech. More than 5.37 crore shares exchanged hands on both BSE and NSE with 4.52 crore shares on NSE alone.

Following the sharp rise in share prices of 3i Infotech, the market capitalisation of the company jumped to Rs 887.84 crore from Rs 759.86 crore a day before on BSE. The pre-paid amount represents three months instalments of the principal amount which were due for repayment on 31 October, 30 November and 31 December 2018 as per the terms of the debt realignment scheme (DRS) approved by its lenders. “With this pre-payment, the company has now prepaid 9 months of principal debt to its lenders. The company continues to service its lenders on a regular basis from the effective date of implementation of DRS i.e. April 1, 2016,” 3i Infotech said.

Meanwhile, Indian stock markets closed lower on Wednesday after making all new record highs in the morning trades amid profit booking ahead of F&O expiry due tomorrow. BSE Sensex dropped 98.8 points or 0.29% to finish at 33,911.81 and NSE Nifty settled down 40.75 points or 0.39% at 10,490.75. The slump in shares of heavyweight companies such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, ITC, Reliance Industries, L&T, TCS, Bharti Airtel, SBI led the indices to slip from their respective peaks. Sensex snapped its two-day gaining streak, plunged 154.2 points to hit a day’s low of 33,856.41 while Nifty lost 62.25 points to mark the day’s low at 10,469.25. During the day, the benchmark Sensex rose as much as 127.36 points to hit the lifetime high of 34,137.97 while the wider 50-share index Nifty made it at 10,552.4, rising by 20.9 points.