Retail investors' stake in YES Bank at record high of 20% in June quarter

A record number of retail investors are holding YES Bank, with one out of every five equity share held by them. Retail investors increased their stake in the private sector lender by 6.5 percentage points during the April-June 2019 quarter (20.46 per cent stake against 13.96 per cent holding at the end of March 2019 quarter).

Retail investors are individuals who hold up to Rs 200,000 of share capital in a company.

Individual shareholders have been buying into YES Bank's shares in April-June quarter, despite the private sector lender posting its first-ever quarterly loss of Rs 1,507 crore in the January-March quarter of FY19.

Presently, about 1.1 million retail investors hold the stock, and 368,579 out of them were added in June quarter. In March 2019, 739,885 retail investors were holding the stock.

On the other hand, institutional investors, led by foreign portfolio investors (FPI) and mutual funds (MF) were more cautious towards the stock, as they collectively reduced their stake in the bank by 10.59 percentage points to 50.72 per cent in the June quarter. They held 61.31 per cent holding in the bank at the end of the March quarter.

The June quarter shareholding data showed mutual funds’ holding in the private sector lender declined to 6.59 per cent from the 9.54 per cent at the end of the March quarter. FPI’s holdings dropped to 33.69 per cent in the June quarter from 40.33 per cent in the previous quarter.

Since April, YES Bank has plunged 69 per cent, as compared to a per cent gain in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.

Today, shares of YES Bank tanked up to 15 per cent to Rs 84 per share in early morning deals on the BSE after the private sector lender reported 91 per cent YoY decline in net profit in the April-June quarter of financial year 2019-20. The stock was trading at its lowest level since April 21, 2014.