LIC’s holding across 296 companies, where its stake is more than 1 per cent, slipped to an all-time low of 3.66 per cent as on March 31, 2021, down from 3.70 per cent as on December 31, 2020 and from all-time high of 5 per cent as on June 30, 2012, according to the Prime Database Group. 

Pranav Haldea, the managing director of the Prime Database Group, has attributed this to profit-booking by India’s largest institutional investor, adding that the stake held had touched an all-time high of 5 per cent in 2012. 

Interestingly, in value terms, there was an increase in the equity assets held by the State-run company at an all-time high of Rs 7.24 lakh crore in March 2021, which represents a 6.30 per cent increase, Prime Database has said, pointing out that market benchmarks Sensex and Nifty rose by 3.70 and 5.10 per cent respectively during this period. 

Holdings by insurance companies declined to a 5-year low of 4.80 per cent as of March 2021, down from 5 per cent at the end of December 2020. In value terms, it went up by 3.09 per cent from the previous quarter to an all-time high of Rs 9.48 lakh crore as of March 2021. 

LIC accounts for over three-fourths of the overall value of the stakes held by insurance companies in equities. 

Mutual funds’ holding reduced to 7.23 per cent as of March 2021, down from 7.42 per cent as of December 2020, and Haldea has added that this is the fourth straight quarter where the MFs have sold their holdings after 24 continuous quarters of an increase. 

However, in value terms, the holding of domestic mutual funds went up by 4.81 per cent to Rs 14.30 lakh crore of March 2021 from Rs 13.64 lakh crore of December 2021.