FIIs increase Tata Steel stake by 6% in third qtr

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs), led by Janus, have scaled up their holding in Tata Steel by more than 6 per cent over the last quarter.

The shareholding filed with the exchanges at the end of December indicate that Janus Worldwide Fund picked up 1.76 per cent stake and Janus Special Equity Fund acquired 1 per cent stake in the company.

But Janus had company as the total FII holding in the company stood at 12.43 per cent compared with 6.31 per cent stake at the end of September.

Total institutional holding""domestic and foreign""increased from 33.17 per cent stake to 36.38 per cent stake in Tata Steel, which implied that domestic institutional investors pared their stake to some extent. Promoters' holding in the company remained almost unchanged at 26.29 per cent.

Market sources said the fact that foreign funds acquired shares from the market was evident from the scrip movement over the past month. Tata Steel scrip moved up from Rs 269 at the beginning of the quarter to Rs 445 at the end of December.

The FIIs' showed their faith in the company, analysts said. They expected the scrip to move up further in the next few days, ahead of announcement of third quarter results.

The stock market was expecting third quarter results to be better than second quarter, on the back of better price realisation.

Market analysts said better performance was expected primarily owing to improved margins, savings in costs as also better product mix.

"The advance tax paid by the company this quarter was more than that in the second quarter" they said.

Tata Steel's performance also improved dramatically in the quarter. The company reported crude and saleable steel production of over 3 million tonne during April-December of the current fiscal.

This represented a jump of 6 per cent from the figure in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

Tata Steel's domestic sales rose 7 per cent at 2.45 million tonne against 2.30 million tonne in the corresponding period of the previous year. Tata Steel exported 0.46 million tonne during April-December.

The scrip touched a 52-week high on the Bombay Stock Exchange yesterday at Rs 460 before finally closing at Rs 441.40. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE) the scrip closed at Rs 441.95. Volumes were also significant at 44 lakh shares and 81 lakh shares on BSE and NSE respectively.