Foreign institutional investors and mutual funds increased their stake in at least 95 stocks in the BSE 500 index during the June quarter when the domestic equity market was under heavy selling pressure due to rising concerns over inflation and outflows by overseas investors.
Data available with Ace equity showed that domestic and global institutional investors upped their stake in stocks from across the sectors including banking, chemicals, footwear and auto, among others. The 30-share index BSE Sensex tanked over 9 per cent to 53,018.94 on June 30, 2022 from 58,568.51 on March 31, 2022. Meanwhile, FIIs offloaded shares of over Rs 1 lakh crore during the quarter.
Beaten down Paytm parent firm One97 Communications also managed to attract institutional investors during the quarter. The latest shareholding data highlighted that FIIs raised their stake in the company to 5.47 per cent in the June quarter from 4.42 per cent in the preceding quarter ended March 31. On the other hand, mutual funds raised their stake to 1.14 per cent from 1.05 per cent earlier. Shares of the company have declined over 60 per cent since its listing in November last year.
Paytm-founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma believes that the company is witnessing “excellent momentum” in its businesses and is on track to achieve operating profitability in 2023. The company on July 28 released its first annual report for FY2021-22 as a publicly-listed company.
Among other newly listed firm, FII increased their stake in CE Info Systems (MayMyIndia) to 5.60 per cent in Q1FY23 against 5.57 per cent in Q4FY22.
Sectorwise, FIIs and mutual funds further lapped shares of Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, City Union Bank, Indian Bank and Bandhan Bank. They also raised their stake in Amara Raja Batteries, Eicher Motors, Escorts Kubota, Jamna Auto, Mahindra & Mahindra and MRF in the auto and auto ancillaries.
Patanjali Foods, ONGC, Nocil, Rain Industries, Rites, Max Healthcare Institute, Mahindra Lifespace Developers, Aditya Birla Fashion, Aegis Logistics, APL Apollo Tubes, Balaji Amines, Chalet Hotels, Eris Lifesciences, Sun Pharma, Tata Chemicals, Tata Coffee and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) stood among other major firms in which FIIs and mutual funds increased their stake during the quarter gone by.
They also raised their stake in select sugar players including Shree Renuka Sugars and EID Parry. Sharing its view on the sugar sector, ICICI Securities in a report said, “The sector has come out of the bitter cyclicality it used to witness before 2018. In the last four years, several government decisions have improved the fundamentals of the sugar sector.”
It further added that the floor price of sugar and monthly quota mechanism helped sugar millers to sell sugar above the cost of production while on the other hand sugar exports and sugarcane diversion towards ethanol led to the reduction in sugar inventories. Moreover, an increasing proportion of B-heavy and sugarcane juice ethanol would result in significant improvement in margins for sugar millers.
