FIIs take fancy to IT scrips

FIIs buy additional 10 mn shares of IT companies.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have added shares of most of the frontline technology companies in the quarter ended March 2005, according to latest data.

FIIs increased their stake in Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL Infosystems, Mphasis BFL, CMC and i-flex Solutions in the January-March 2005 quarter, after having studiously avoided these counters in the last two quarters.

FIIs bought an additional 10 million equity shares of technology companies during the quarter. They also purchased equity shares of mid-cap technology companies such as Aftek Infosys, Infotech Enterprises, Polaris Software, Geometric Software, Kale Consultants and Patni Computer Systems during the quarter.

FIIs' holdings in Zen Technologies, Moschip Semiconductor Techno, Infotech Enterprises and VisualSoft Technologies more than doubled in the January-March 2005 quarter.

FIIs' stake in Infosys Technologies (42.87 per cent), HCL Infosystems (18.76 per cent) , Mphasis BFL(23.57 per cent), Aftek Infosys (16.63 per cent), CMC (8.73 per cent), Geometric Software (4.98 per cent) and i-flex solutions(14.49 per cent) increased by more than one percentage points each in the last quarter.

Of the thirty listed technology companies which have posted the shareholding pattern for the quarter ended March 2005 on the exchanges, FIIs increased their stake upto 8.52 per cent in the aggregate in 22 companies. In two companies, Sonata Software and Fortune Informatics, their stake remain unchanged, while in six companies, Aptech, Datamatics Technologies, Moser Baer, HCL Technologies, Four Soft and Rolta, FIIs reduced their stake by anywhere between less than one per cent to 3.7 per cent during the quarter.

FIIs' stake in Zen Technologies increased from just 0.21 per cent at the end of the December 2004 quarter to 8.73 per cent at the end of the March 2005 quarter. India Fud Inc (4.61 per cent) and FID Funds Mauritius (3.87 per cent) are the two FIIs which have aggressively accumulated this stock during the quarter.

In Infotech Enterprises, FIIs increased their stake by 3.52 percentage points to 6.66 per cent during the quarter. FIIs holds a 3.14 per cent stake in the company at the end of December 2004 quarter.

Goldman Sachs Investment Mauritius increased its stake from below one per cent to 1.70 per cent in the March 2005 quarter and ABN Amro Asia Mauritius raised its stake from 1.63 per cent to 2.34 per cent during the quarter.

FIIs' holdings in TCS reached inched up from from 5.63 per cent to 5.99 per cent in the last quarter. In Wipro, FIIs increased their stake from 3.41 per cent to 3.80 per cent, in Patni Computer Systems to 12.13 per cent (11.25 per cent), Kale Consultants to 1.66 per cent (0.90 per cent), Polaris Software to 6.05 per cent (5.45 per cent), Flextronics Software to 12.09 per cent (11.70 per cent) and iGate Global Solutions to 4.31 per cent (4.01 per cent).