Divis Labs
Divis LabsIBT Creative

The journey of this pharmaceutical company has baffled investors and market watchers alike. The phenomenal growth and returns for investors that grew over 400 percent in a matter of 17 years - and that's only since the IPO. The name that should be etched in the minds of brokers and traders is Divis Labs.

To give our readers a perspective, anyone who invested Rs 1.4 lakh in Divis Labs stock in 2003, their shares are now worth Rs 6 crore. And that's without taking the dividend income into consideration. CNBC's stock editor Anuj Singhal explained in the latest episode of "Off The Charts" how a stock went from a small cap to mega cap since its listing in 2003.

Divis Labs - Multiplying investments since 2003

sensex nifty
Representational imageReuters

Divis Labs kicked off its IPO in 2003 with per share value of Rs 140. If anyone bought 1,000 shares back then, it would have cost Rs 1.4 lakh. That investment left untouched, grew to a whopping Rs Rs 6.4 crore in share value - that's 457 times returns over the period.

Let's look at the match behind it. Anuj explains:

In 2007, the company split shares from Rs 10 to Rs 2 and gave two bonus issues of 1:1 so far. With this, those who bought 1,000 shares back in 2003 would now own 20,000 shares. By today's value of Divis shares, those 20,000 shares are worth Rs 6.4 crore.

Looking at the dividend income, the company paid Rs 32 per share. Going by the above investment, if you kept all your shares, the dividend income last year alone comes out to be Rs 6.4 lakh - that is 4 times the initial investment. And to give further background, the company was started with a capital of Rs 10 crore, and Rs 6 crore was original promoter investment and the remaining came from other investors, who made an exit in 2003. Divis remained profitable and debt-free. There was no promoter dilution nor funds raised. This phenomenal journey of Divis is certainly worth taking a lesson from.