The share prices of housing finance companies (HFCs) received a thrashing on the bourses on Wednesday on news that Delhi-based real estate developer SuperTech’s rating was downgraded to junk.

Brickwork is said to have revised its ratings on the ₹1,866-crore bank facilities of SuperTech to junk status, citing failure to service debt. The IL&FS fiasco has vitiated the scenario, and any adverse news leads to panic reaction in the stock markets, traders told BusinessLine.

Indiabulls Housing Finance (IBHF), which is said to have an exposure of between ₹500-600 crore fell the most at over 13 per cent. Among others, PNB Housing Finance and DHFL fell by 5 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively. Other bank and NBFC shares too reacted and fell by 1-5 per cent on the news. The panic selling in financial sector shares led to a last-hour sell-off in the Sensex and Nifty, resulting in a fall of over 1 per cent.

Earlier last month the share price of IBHFs had crashed by 35 per cent intraday on news of default by IL&FS. In intra-day trading that day, shares of DHFL fell 70 per cent. The share price of L&T Finance too declined by 8 per cent as markets feared that it had huge exposure to SuperTech.

Brickwork last week revised ratings on ₹1,866.4 crore of SuperTech’s bank facilities to default, citing its failure to service debt obligations. It blamed the developer’s troubles on cash-flow mismatches because of a slowdown in the real estate industry.

Macquarie’s sales team, in a note to clients on Wednesday said Indiabulls’ loans to SuperTech could be more than ₹500 crore. An Edelweiss report said the exposure was ₹600 crore.