FIIs scale up holding in Sensex stocks in March quarter

At the end of December 2204 quarter, FIIs accounted for 24.65 per cent of the free float market captialisation of Sensex stocks.

As per the shareholding in 28 of the 30 Sensex stocks for the quarter ended March 2005, FIIs bought additional 207 million shares of these companies during January-March 2005.

In 25 Sensex stocks, FIIs hold over 15 per cent stake each at the end of March quarter against 18 stocks in March 2004 quarter and 22 companies at the end of December 2004 quarter.

During the January-March 2005 quarter, FIIs increased their stake in 17 of 28 Sensex stocks. Their holdings in Grasim Industries (23.69 per cent) and State Bank of India (11.90 per cent) remain unchanged.

In 10 companies, FIIs increased their stake by more than 1 percentage points each. They bought equity shares of heavyweight index stocks such as Infosys Technologies, ITC, Bharti Tele-Ventures, Hindustan Lever, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Tata Steel and ONGC during the quarter.

FIIs stake in Bharti Tele-Ventures increased by 10.21 per cent from 14.18 per cent in December quarter to 24.39 per cent at the end of March quarter.

Capital Research & Management Company (3.70 per cent), Morgan Stanley & Company International (1.69 per cent), CLSA Merchant Bankers Ltd A/c Calyon (1.53 per cent), Citi Group Global Marketing Mauritius (1.37 per cent) and Growth Fund of America Inc (1.08 per cent) are the major FIIs to have raised their holdings in company by more than 1 per cent during the quarter.

In Gujarat Ambuja Cement, FIIs raised their holdings by 3.61 per cent to 32.31 per cent against 28.70 per cent in last quarter. Their stake in HDFC Bank increased by 2.72 per cent to 31.71 per cent (28.99 per cent), Hindalco by 2.05 per cent to 22.73 per cent (20.68 per cent) and of HPCL by 1.97 per cent to 21.71 per cent (19.74 per cent).

However, FIIs reduced their stakes in Sensex stocks ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, ACC and Bajaj Auto. They offloaded most pharmaceutical shares such as Dr Reddy's Lab, Ranbaxy Laboratories and Cipla during the quarter.

Hero Honda Motors and Satyam Computer Services have yet to file their shareholding pattern with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), so the status of FIIs in these two companies is still a mystery.