Government-owned insurance major Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has raised its stake in 12 Sensex companies in the March quarter this year, which amounts to Rs 16,400 crore in valuation at current levels.
However, the stake held by LIC in 12 other blue-chip companies declined during the quarter on sequential basis, The Economic Times reported citing an analysis of the shareholding pattern of the Sensex constituents.
The insurer had no exposure to index heavyweights such as Axis Bank and Hindustan Unilever during the first quarter this year, and its holding was unchanged in four companies -Tata Steel, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Vedanta and Tata Motors.
LIC has increased its stake in state-owned miner Coal India to a maximum of 4.65 per cent worth Rs 10,754 crore during the quarter.
The company bought more than 28.47 crore shares or 4.51 per cent stake in Coal India, amounting to nearly half of its divested stake worth Rs 22,558 crore. The government had offloaded a stake of 10 per cent in Coal India in January this year.
"Coal India Limited has set a target to attain one billion tonne of coal production by 2019-20. This would entail a ballpark investment of USD 20 billion," Coal Minister Piyush Goyal told Business Standard on 15 May.
Among the 30 Sensex firms, the insurance giant has highest exposure of 16.73 per cent in Larsen & Toubro (L&T).
The current valuations of LIC holdings in 12 index firms stand at nearly Rs 16,400 crore. It also increased its stake in GAIL, Infosys, Bajaj Auto, Reliance Industries, Hero MotoCorp, ONGC, NTPC, Hindalco Industries and Mahindra & Mahindra during the quarter ending March.
LIC, a major institutional investor in the stock markets, has cut down its exposure in Maruti Suzuki, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Cipla, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC, ITC and L&T.
