Retail investors have been lapping up the stock of troubled Amtek Auto through the September quarter even as institutions, both foreign and domestic, have been offloading their stakes.

According to the latest data on the BSE on the auto component manufacturer’s shareholding pattern, individual shareholders (with holdings of below ₹1 lakh) increased their holdings of the Amtek Auto stock to 14.87 per cent at the end of September, from 5.55 per cent at the end of June.

It was in September that Amtek Auto failed to fully repay the ₹800 crore due in bond payments, leaving mutual fund house JP Morgan — which held about a fourth of that debt — in the lurch. The company’s stock nosedived through the quarter after the auto parts maker admitted that it was facing a cash crunch. The promoters infusing ₹75 crore and raising their holding by a percentage point (from 48.98 per cent in June 2015 to 49.99 in September 2015) has done little to restore investor confidence.

In fact, non-institutional investors — of which retail investors form a significant chunk — have consistently raised their holdings in Amtek Auto at 30 per cent, at the end of September 2015 from 9.32 per cent at the end of September 2014.

Corporate investors (the other large category in non-institutional investors) followed suit in the same period, doubling their total investment in the company’s shares to 10.33 per cent from 5.52 per cent.

They seem to have been buying while institutional investors saw trouble at the company. FIIs have consistently reduced their stake to 13.17 per cent from 37.11 per cent over the last 12 months. Domestic institutions, which held 4.59 per cent in Amtek Auto in September 2014, tripled it in the June 2015 quarter to 16.47 per cent. However, through the September quarter, they halved their holding to under 8 per cent.

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