Fund managers pare holdings in several blue chip stocks in March

Mutual funds (MFs) were big subscribers of share sales in March. BPCL, Bank of Baroda, Wabco India, SBI Cards, and Tata Communications were the top five buys of equity fund managers in March. Bank of Baroda issued fresh equity via a qualified institutional placement and the others saw large secondary exits.

MFs also invested big in initial public offerings (IPOs). “March was an IPO frenzy month and MFs collectively deployed Rs 1,600 crore in nine issue,” says Abhilash Pagaria, analyst at Edelweiss Securities. They invested about Rs 613 crore in MTAR Tech and about Rs 180 crore each in the IPOs of Craftsman Automation and Nazara Tech.

Meanwhile, equity MFs were seen paring their holdings in several blue chip stocks such as RIL (sold shares worth Rs 1,811 crore), HUL (Rs 1,531 crore), and ICICI Bank (Rs 1,267 crore). Nine of the 10 most-sold stocks were part of the Nifty50. Equity MFs had a lot of dry powder in March as they saw positive inflows, of over Rs 9,000 crore, after a gap of nine months.