UTI Mutual holding in 7 blue chips below 1%

The holding of UTI Mutual Fund (UTIMF) in seven Sensex scrips slipped below 1 per cent, and its stake in 13 other Sensex stocks declined by between 0.22 per cent and 1.84 per cent after it sold 62.9 million shares of 25 Sensex stocks.

UTIMF bought 16.3 million shares of the remaining five stocks in the Sensex basket, thus hiking its stake in them.

On top of the fund's selling list were the private sector giant, Reliance Industries, technology major Infosys Technologies, automobile leader Tata Motors, FMCG major Hindustan Lever, private sector bank ICICI Bank and power major Tata Power.

The fund's holding in all these stocks slipped to below 1 per cent at the end of March 2004, compared with the levels at the end of March 2003.

Over the year, the fund sold 10.9 million equity shares of Reliance Industries as a result of which its holding in Reliance declined from 1.69 per cent at the end of March 2003 to 0.91 per cent at the end of March 2004.

In the same period, it sold 13.9 million shares of Hindustan Lever, which led to its holding in the company falling from 1.10 per cent to 0.47 per cent.

Its holding in ICICI Bank slipped from 1.14 per cent to 0.16 per cent, Tata Motors (2.06 per cent to 0.58 per cent), Infosys Technologies (1.80 per cent to 0.99 per cent), Tata Power (1.07 per cent to 0.87 per cent) and Zee Telefilms (1.97 per cent to 1 per cent).

UTIMF was also a seller in almost all public sector undertaking (PSU) counters. UTIMF was also a seller in almost all PSU counters. The fund house sold 5.25 million shares of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, around 4 million shares of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, close to 1.40 million shares of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd and around 1.12 million shares of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

The largest reduction in UTIMF's stake in the blue chip Sensex stocks was in the engineering giant Larsen & Toubro. Its stake in L&T fell from 4.21 per cent as at the end of March 2003 to 2.37 per cent at the end of March 2004, as the it sold 4.59 million shares.