Mukul Agrawal’s Rs 210 cr bet revealed: The company behind 36% of India’s new credit cards

Recent disclosures handed us a neat pair of examples. Mukul Agrawal of Param Capital bought 2.52% in Manipal Payment and Identity Solutions, the card maker that listed on 17^th September. This occurred even as the promoter sold Rs 485 crore worth of shares. At the close on 24^th September 2026, Agrawal’s stake was worth about Rs 210 cr.

Porinju Veliyath, the founder of Equity Intelligence, bought 5 lakh shares of Fratelli Vineyards through a bulk deal on the BSE on 4^th September 2025. Recently his name slipped below the 1% disclosure line. The twist lies in what the stock did next. Let us dive in.

#1 Manipal Payment and Identity Solutions: Dominating India’s Wallets With 36% of New Credit Cards

If the credit card in your wallet was issued last year, the odds are better than one in three that this company made it.

Incorporated in 2008 as MCT Cards & Technology, Manipal Payment and Identity Solutions belongs to the Manipal Group, whose printing roots go back to 1948. It makes debit, credit and metal cards for banks and fintechs, and also prints cheques, driving licences, vehicle registration certificates and tax stamps.

Valued at Rs 8,230 cr, the company says in its offer document that it held about 36.4% of India’s credit card issuance and 30.9% of debit card issuance in FY26. It billed 13.54 million credit cards and 72.66 million debit cards that year.

The IPO Math: Why Agrawal Ignored the Exit Window in a Lukewarm IPO

Now, while this fresh bet is just revealed, Agrawal came in much earlier. Even before the IPO, alongside backers such as Nuvama and Amicus Capital Partners. His 58,31,220 shares were about 2.6% of the company before fresh shares diluted that to 2.52%.

The Rs 805 cr issue was subscribed just 1.42 times, and about 60% of it went to the promoter, Manipal Technologies, which cut its stake to 53.92%. It listed at Rs 330 on the NSE, below the Rs 339 issue price, and slid to about Rs 316.

Then the mood flipped. On 23^rd September it touched about Rs 406, and it closed on 24^th September at Rs 359.95, about 6% above the issue price.

Agrawal had a way out. Early backers often sell part of their holding in the offer for sale. He did not. From here, SEBI rules generally lock in pre-IPO shares held by non-promoter investors for six months from allotment, so he is holding by choice and by rule.

Beneath the Surface: 43% ROCE and a Rs 127 Crore Anomaly

Only three years of financials are on public record, so a five-year growth rate does not exist.

Financial Year	FY24	FY25	FY26	2-Yr CAGR
Sales (Rs cr)	1,248	1,256	1,327	3%
EBITDA (Rs cr)	335	391	426	13%
Net Profit (Rs cr)	249	282	253	1%

EBITDA here refers to operating profit before other income. Only FY24 to FY26 figures are available, so a 5-year CAGR cannot be calculated.

Sales grew just 3% a year between FY24 and FY26. EBITDA (operating profit) did far better, rising about 13% a year, as the operating margin climbed from 27% to 32%. Net profit barely moved.

The 10% dip in FY26 profit needs context. FY25 was flattered by other income of Rs 127 cr, against Rs 27 cr in FY26, and the tax rate rose from 20% to 27%. The core business had a decent year.

The returns catch the eye. ROCE (return on capital employed) stands at 43% and ROE at 45%. Put simply, each Rs 100 of capital at work earns about Rs 43. Borrowings were also cut from Rs 565 cr in FY25 to Rs 153 cr in FY26.

The soft spot is cash from operations, which fell from Rs 309 cr in FY24 to Rs 208 cr in FY26, and inventory days jumped from 69 to 146. More money is sitting on the shelves.

The 34x Premium and the Looming UPI Threat

The stock is priced at about 34 times earnings, right in the middle of the 14 fintech firms it is grouped with, a list that includes Paytm and PB Fintech. The closest listed rival, Seshaasai Technologies, which also makes payment cards and secure documents, trades at about 22x. With no price history before 17^th September, the usual 10-year median PE comparison is not possible.

The biggest risk sits in your phone. Cards made up 57.25% of FY26 revenue, and the offer document itself flags that the debit card market is shrinking as payments shift to UPI. Credit and metal cards help, but the core product faces pressure from a technology the company does not control.

Two dates matter. Half the shares allotted to anchor investors, who put in Rs 362 cr, become free to trade around 15^th October 2026. And the company has told the BSE its trading window stays shut until 48 hours after its June and September quarter results, its first report card as a listed firm.

#2 Fratelli Vineyards: Legacy Grain Trader Morphed into a Premium Winemaker

Incorporated in 2009, Fratelli Vineyards spent most of its listed life as Tinna Trade, a trader of pulses, grains and steel abrasives. In FY25, it acquired Fratelli Wines, an Indo-Italian winemaker set up in 2007, through a share swap and took its name. It sells wines such as J’NOON and Sette, and a ready-to-drink brand called Shotgun.

Valued at Rs 587 cr, the company says it is the first Indian winery with five wines scoring 90-plus at the Decanter World Wine Awards, per its earnings call transcript filed with the BSE on 17^th August 2026.

Exiting a 44% Drawdown Right Before a 119% Rebound

At first, Veliyath’s entry looked well timed. The stock was already far below its August 2024 peak of Rs 494.80. On 4^th September 2025, he bought 5 lakh shares at Rs 109.70 each, a Rs 5.49 cr bet, and the stock hit its 5% upper circuit that day.

His stake showed up at 1.2% in the September and December 2025 quarters, and 1.1% (4,58,316 shares) in March 2026, pointing to a small trim. The stock was in free fall. It hit a 52-week low of Rs 61.55 around the start of April 2026, about 44% below his cost, and was still near Rs 75 in mid-May.

In the June 2026 quarter, his holding dropped below 1% for the first time. That does not confirm a full exit, and we do not know at what price he sold.

Here is the sting. As of 25^th September 2026, the stock traded at Rs 135, up about 120% from its April low and roughly 24% above his entry price. Anyone who bought at the 2024 peak, though, is still down about 72%.

Navigating the Messy Transition

Financial Year	FY21	FY24	FY25	FY26	5-Yr CAGR
Sales (Rs cr)	245	421	276	153	-9%
EBITDA (Rs cr)	1	29	-5	-7	NM
Net Profit (Rs cr)	-1	9	-17	-25	NM

EBITDA here refers to operating profit before other income. Consolidated figures for FY22 and FY23 are not reported. NM: not meaningful.

On paper, sales shrank 9% a year between FY21 and FY26. But that compares a grain trader with a winemaker. The EBITDA and profit growth rates mean nothing either, since FY21 was a near-zero base and FY26 was a loss.

Sales fell from Rs 421 cr in FY24 to Rs 153 cr in FY26 as the old trading arm wound down, and the loss widened to Rs 25 cr. The June 2026 quarter was the first sign of a turn. Sales rose 22% to Rs 44.72 cr, operating profit crept to Rs 0.29 cr, and the net loss narrowed from Rs 5.82 cr to Rs 3.67 cr. Management said wine grew about 8% while Shotgun more than doubled.

The Market Cap Disconnect: Paying for a Turnaround in Sula’s Shadow

Being loss-making, Fratelli has no PE. A 10-year median PE is not meaningful either, since for most of that decade this was a thin-margin commodity trader. The stock trades at about 4.3 times book value.

A better yardstick is Sula Vineyards. Sula is valued at about Rs 1,133 cr and posted June-quarter sales of Rs 112.87 cr, with a profit of just Rs 1.06 cr, down 45%. Fratelli is valued at half of Sula while selling about 40% as much, and still losing money. The market is paying for a turnaround that has not reached the bottom line, in a trade where even the leader is struggling.

The Debt Drag: Rs 138 Crore Borrowings and Swelling Debtor Days

For FY27, management is aiming for over 2 lakh cases of Shotgun, against about 80,000 last year, an EBITDA margin of 5% to 6%, and net break-even.

The risks are just as clear. Borrowings stood at Rs 138 cr in March 2026, and the interest bill of Rs 13 cr dwarfed operating earnings. Debtor days have swollen to 251. On the call, management said it was weighing options to bring liquidity into the company and would not comment on issuing new shares. It also admitted the bottled wine business had been flat for two years.

Why Position Sizing is the Ultimate Hedge for Retail Portfolios

Side by side, the contrast is sharp. Agrawal’s position is large, about Rs 210 cr, in a business already earning 32% operating margins. He held on through a limp listing. Veliyath’s was small, about Rs 5.5 cr, in a company still losing money and reinventing itself. He cut it after a 44% slide.

Neither move proves the other wrong. Manipal must show it can grow faster than 3% a year while UPI eats into debit cards. Fratelli must turn one better quarter into a profitable year without tapping shareholders. What the filings show is how much investing comes down to position size. A super investor can afford to be wrong on a Rs 5 cr bet. A retail investor copying it with his savings often cannot.

There is a timing lesson too. Shareholding data arrives weeks late and shows what an investor held on the last day of the quarter, not when or at what price he acted. By the time the market learned Veliyath had cut his stake, the stock had already doubled from its low.

The coming weeks will be telling. Manipal’s first results and the mid-October anchor unlock will test its rally. Fratelli’s September quarter will show whether the June turn was real. It may be worth putting both on a watchlist and tracking the next two quarters.

Disclaimer:

Note: We have relied on data from www.Screener.in and www.trendlyne.com throughout this article. Only in cases where the data was not available, have we used an alternate, but widely used and accepted source of information, including filings made available on the BSE website.

The purpose of this article is only to share interesting charts, data points and thought-provoking opinions. It is NOT a recommendation. If you wish to consider an investment, you are strongly advised to consult your advisor. This article is strictly for educative purposes only.

Suhel Khan has been a passionate follower of the markets for over a decade. During this period, He was an integral part of a leading Equity Research organisation based in Mumbai as the Head of Sales & Marketing. Presently, he is spending most of his time dissecting the investments and strategies of the Super Investors of India.

Disclosure: The writer and his dependents do not hold the stocks discussed in this article.

The website managers, its employee(s), and contributors/writers/authors of articles have or may have an outstanding buy or sell position or holding in the securities, options on securities or other related investments of issuers and/or companies discussed therein. The content of the articles and the interpretation of data are solely the personal views of the contributors/ writers/authors.