Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) have raised their exposure in 29 Sensex companies, with purchase of shares worth an estimated $5 billion, during the quarter ended December 31, 2012.

The FII holding declined in only one blue-chip company Hero MotoCorp during the October-December 2012 quarter, according to the shareholding pattern of 30 Sensex companies.

Most of the foreign entities trade in Indian stocks through FII route and market analysts said the overseas investors appear to have been enthused by the stability in the equity market and reform initiatives taken by the Government during the quarter.

Market value

As per the current market value of the Sensex companies, FIIs are estimated to have purchased shares worth about Rs 26,335 crore ($5 billion) in 29 Sensex companies during the last quarter.

At the same time, the FIIs are estimated to have sold shares worth about Rs 129 crore ($24 million) in one Sensex company — resulting in a net investment of over Rs 26,207 crore ($4.89 billion) in all the Sensex firms together.

FIIs infused more than Rs 46,000 crore in the entire Indian stock market during October-December quarter on the back of a slew of reforms initiated by the Government, pushing the broader market Sensex to surge 664 points or 3.5 per cent during the period.

FIIs holding

Among the Sensex firms, FIIs raised their stake in HDFC, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Infosys, Wipro, ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro, SBI, Cipla, GAIL, BHEL and Mahindra & Mahindra.

Besides, they also increased their holdings in Sun Pharma, ITC, HUL, Hindalco, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, Maruti, Bajaj Auto, ONGC, GAIL, Tata Group firms — Tata Power, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and TCS — Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, NTPC and Coal India.

FII ownership

Interestingly, the shareholding of overseas institutional investors in HDFC has risen to 73.17 per cent — the highest level in nearly seven years — up from 68.72 per cent at the end of previous quarter. Incidentally, the largest rise in FII ownership was also recorded by HDFC.

After HDFC, the largest rise in FII ownership was recorded by auto maker Mahindra & Mahindra followed by Maruti.

In Mahindra & Mahindra, the overseas investors hiked their stake by 2.86 percentage points to 32.86 per cent at the end of December quarter, wherein their holding rose 2.68 percentage points to 23.13 per cent in Maruti.

FIIs raised their holding in Bajaj Auto from 15.11 per cent to 17.04 per cent. In contrast, FIIs reduced their stake marginally in Hero MotoCorp from 32.34 per cent during July-September quarter from 31.99 per cent in October-December quarter.

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