IRFC Vs RVNL: Dividend Record Date, Fundamentals, Profits, Which Mega Railway PSU Stock To Buy?

Two mega railway PSU stocks, Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) and Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL) have announced their first quarterly earnings for FY25. While the stocks have been in a bullish trend so far in 2024, with RVNL outperforming IRFC. One of them is set to reward investors with dividend payout, and their fundamentals are broadly healthy. So which top railway PSU stocks, should investors buy?

IRFC:

Currently, IRFC share price is at Rs 180.15 apiece with market cap of Rs 2,35,429.14 crore, making it the largest railway company in terms of market share. The stock's 52-week high and low is at Rs 229.05 apiece and Rs 46.38 apiece.

Data from BSE showed that IRFC has price-to-equity ratio of 36.51x, while return on equity is at 13.11%. YTD, the stock rallied by 79.5%, and in a year, the gains were massive by 277.44%.

In Q1FY25, the company posted revenue of Rs 6,765.6 crore versus Rs 6,673.8 crore in Q1FY24 and Rs 6,473.1 crore in Q4FY24. While its PAT is at Rs 1,576.8 crore as against Rs 1,551.2 crore in Q1FY24 and Rs 1,717.3 crore in Q4FY24.

Among its fundamentals, as per Trendlyne data, IRFC's stock rose 281.31% and outperformed its sector by 229.06% in the past year. While Promoter Share Holding stayed the same in the most recent quarter at 86.36%. Also, Mutual Fund Holding increased by 0.37% in the last quarter to 0.55. However, Debt to Equity Ratio of 8.38 is higher than 1, which implies that company assets are financed through debt.

Going ahead, IRFC is set to deliver Rs 0.70 per share dividend for FY24. This is the final dividend, and is in addition to interim dividend payout of Rs 0.80 per share earlier in November 2023 for the fiscal. In total, IRFC is delivering Rs 1.5 per share dividend for FY24.

For the final dividend, the company will turn ex-dividend on August 22. This is also its record date to determine eligible shareholders.

BUY IRFC Share Price?

Prabhudas Lilladher: The stock has been consolidating for quite a while near 178 zone of the long term trendline support level after the decent correction from the peak zone of 229 levels and has indicated signs of improvement moving past the significant 50EMA level of 183 and with bias getting better is anticipated to rise further in the coming days. With the RSI cooling off from the overbought zone has arrived at an attractive zone with a positive trend reversal indicated to signal a buy and has much upside potential from current zone. With the chart looking good, we suggest to buy the stock for an upside target of 230-250 keeping the stop loss of 164.