PRIZE CATCH

The country's largest equity market investor, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), made some cherry picking in blue chip companies when the stock market fell during the last two weeks of the JanuaryMarch quarter.

The latest shareholding data disclosed to the stock exchanges by companies showed LIC has raised stake in top firms like Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Titan and Infosys compared to the OctoberDecember quarter, as equity shares of these companies hit their 52week lows in the second half of March 2020.

Some other blue chips where LIC's stake went up included HCL Technologies, Sun Pharmaceutical, Hero MotoCorp, Tata Steel, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Bharti Infratel, an analysis of shareholding data showed.

As a contrarian investor, LIC also booked profit in Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindustan Unilever, ICICI Bank, Nestle, Asian Paints and Ultratech Cement as shares prices of these companies were ruling at their 52-week highs during the JanuaryMarch quarter.

LIC's stake went down in ITC, State Bank of India, and Wipro by a small fraction during the fourth quarter.

The life insurer's stake went up in TCS from 4.12 per cent to 4.20 per cent as per the latest shareholding data, as on March 31, 2020. An analysis by Financial Chronicle indicates LIC made a minimum investment of Rs 416.61 crore to purchase 27.70 lakh TCS shares at Rs 1504.40, the 52week low price recorded on March 13.

A top LIC official recently said LIC invested around Rs 2,500 crore in equities during the last quarter.

Other significant stake buys by LIC during the quarter included HDFC

(4.67 per cent in Q4 from

4.21 per cent in Q3), HDFC Bank (3.04 per cent from

2.74 per cent), Larsen & Toubro (15.09 per cent from 14.45 per cent), Infosys (6.62 per cent from

6.30 per cent), Titan Industries (2.27 per cent from 1.64 per cent), HCL Technologies (1.34 per cent from less than 1 per cent), Dr Reddy's Lab (5.10 per cent from 4.84 per cen) and Tata Steel (9.11 per cent from 8.42 per cent).

LIC's profit booking led to a decline in stake in Nestle (2.87 per cent from

3.04 per cent), ICICI Bank

(9.97 per cent from 10.58 per cent), Ultratech Cement (3.07 per cent from 3.24 per cent) and Kotak Mahindra Bank

(2.23 per cent from 2.31 per cent).