Mutual funds bought into D-Mart, ITC, Hindalco; dumped RIL, HDFC in March

NEW DELHI: A 28 per cent rally might have infused a fresh lease of life on the Reliance Industries counter, but for some big mutual fund houses, it was time to book profit on the stock.

HDFC, Axis Bank, Wipro, Grasim Industries and Tech Mahindra are some other stocks which saw profit taking by domestic mutual funds in March.

Domestic fund houses sold 38 lakh RIL shares in March worth some Rs 504 crore, Edelweiss Securities said in a note.

Axis Bank saw MFs trimming holdings by 98 lakh shares worth Rs 483 crore. HDFC, which was mutual funds’ favourite for quite some time, saw MFs reduce holdings by 30 lakh shares worth Rs 445 crore.

Grasim Industries, Tech Mahindra, TCS, UltraTech Cement and Infosys were some of the companies in which MFs reduced stakes in March by Rs 270-392 crore.

On the other hand, Hindalco Industries alone saw Rs 1,940 crore worth of MF buying in March. Avanue Supermarts, which owns D-Mart, had MF investment worth Rs 1,241 crore as of March 31. The stock was listed on BSE on March 21.

While HDFC did not find favour with MFs in March, its twin HDFC Bank saw these institutional investors buy Rs 1,214 crore worth of shares on the counter.

ICIC Prudential was seen buying Rs 891 crore worth of Hindalco shares during the month. ITC (Rs 512 crore) and IOC (Rs 448 crore) were some of its other picks.

The fund house reduced exposure to Reliance Industries (by Rs 581 crore), Infosys (by Rs 580 crore) and Bharti Airtel (by Rs 477 crore).

ICICI Prudential AMC was new buyer on the Avenue Supermarts (IPO), PNC Infra and Kansai Nerolac counters while it completely exited Ashiana Housing.

Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund bought into Hindalco Industries, Emami and Yes Bank, while trimming holdings in Axis Bank (by Rs 160 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs 113 crore) and Bharti Infratel (Rs 105 crore).

SBI Mutual Fund bought ITC, Hindalco and Bharti Airtel and cut stakes in BHEL and Tata Communications.

HDFC MF, ICICI Pru, Reliance Nippon, Franklin Templeton and UTI Mutual Fund were among major fund houses which bought stakes in Avenue Supermarkts during the month.