MFs pour over Rs 1,000 crore in these 10 stocks in March, cut stake in ITC

NEW DELHI: Mutual fund (MF) managers bought over Rs 1,000 crore worth of shares in at least 10 companies in March while they largely trimmed exposure in ITC, Hindalco Industries, Sun Pharmaceuticals and TCS among others.

Data showed that MFs bought banking and financial stocks such as Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC, oil & gas scrips like ONGC, Reliance Industries and GAIL and cement counters such as UltraTech Cement and Ambuja Cements in the last month.

Mutual funds were gung ho on Kotak Mahindra Bank, as they purchased Rs 2,722 crore worth of private lender's shares in the month gone by. MFs held 17.36 crore Kotak Bank shares as of March 31 compared with 15.81 crore shares as of February 28.


In the case of HDFC, they bought shares worth Rs 2,128 crore. ONGC (Rs 2,027 crore), Maruti Suzuki (Rs 1,927 crore), Hindustan Unilever (Rs 1,496 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs 1,395 crore), Coforge (Rs 1,339 crore) and Indian Hotels (Rs 1,322 crore) were among many stocks where MFs bought shares worth a thousand crores last month.

Meanwhile, mutual funds were seen selling Rs 3,005 crore worth of ITC shares in the month. They held 118.90 crore ITC shares as of March 31 compared with 130.8 crore shares as of February 28.

Fund managers also cut their stake in Hindalco Industries to 22.89 crore shares from 25.58 crores a month ago, down Rs 1,535 crore in value. Sun Pharma was another stock wherein MFs sold over Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 1,069 crore) worth of shares, data compiled by Edelweiss Securities showed.

The list also included stocks such as UPL, Bharti Airtel, JSW Steel, Cipla, TCS, Power Grid, Tech Mahindra, IOC and Tata Motors.