Shares of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (Adag) firms, Unitech and DB Realty dropped sharply

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in an otherwise strong market on Wednesday, as investors trimmed positions on these counters following the CBI court order, rejecting bail pleas of five corporate executives in the 2G spectrum case.

While Sensex rallied 349 points to 19,470.98, shares of DB Realty, Uni­tech, Reliance Communications, Reliance MediaWorks and Reliance Bro­adcast Network lost 1 to 5 per cent.

However Reliance Power, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Capital — also part of Adag — ended marginally higher after going down over 2 per cent in intra-day trade. DB Realty and Unitech under-performed the BSE realty index, which gained nearly 1 per cent to 2363.36.

“Fundamentals of these companies have not changed much in recent times. The stocks mainly reacted to news flow. Some of these stocks may continue to under-perform the market till there is more clarity on the spectrum issue,” said Gaurav Dua, research head at Sharekhan.

Earlier in the day, the CBI court rejected bail pleas of Vinod Goenka of Swan Telecom, Sanjay Chandra of Unitech and three Adag officials Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara.

“It’s a knee-jerk reaction and the fall was triggered by news flow with regard to the bail plea. The 2G spectrum issue has already been discounted in the prices. These shares may see some further downward movement in the near term,” said Rajesh Agrawal, research head at Eastern Financiers.

Reliance Communications has underperformed its peers, falling nearly 29 per cent since January 3, while Bharti Airtel has risen nearly 6 per cent. Idea Cellular is down 3.5 per cent during the same period.

Shares of Unitech and DB Realty have tumbled 39 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively, during this period, while the BSE realty index has lost 18 per cent.

Parikshit Kandpal of Ambit Capital said “key decision makers in these companies not getting bail could hamper their future prospects. It may also lead to depressed financials for the companies if it leads to execution delays in ongoing projects and bankers avoid lending to them due to corporate governance issues.”

Archana Shivane of KR Choksey Shares & Securities said, “The 2G scam and issues such as high debt will continue to affect share price of Reliance Communications. The stock may remain range-bound in the near term in absence of any positive trigger.”