Apollo Tyres, Can Fin Homes, Ceat among mid-cap picks of FIIs last quarter

The Indian stock market is clearly consolidating after top indices reached close to their all-time highs clocked last year as part of the Diwali rally. At the same time, there are enough pundits who see the markets cooling off as growth risks remain while most of the positives have already been factored in.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), or foreign institutional investors (FIIs), had become more cautious about investing in India over the last one year. In fact, in the October-December 2021 quarter, they were net sellers in Indian equities and pulled out over $5.1 billion in the process.

In the first six months of this year, they made their bearish sentiments apparent with net sales of securities worth over $35 billion on the cash equities side alone. In July they tempered their mood and turned net buyers in August only to again press on the sell button in September. Last month, too, they have been net sellers with around $600 million in net sales in the cash equity segment.

But it was not a one-way show.

We scanned through the list of companies that have disclosed their shareholding patterns to get companies where FIIs took a bullish stance and actually hiked their holding.

In particular, they hiked stake in 32 mid-cap companies with current market valuation of Rs 5,000-20,000 crore during the three months ended September 30. This was just half of the 60 mid-cap stocks where they bought additional shares in the preceding quarter and 48 such companies in the three months ended March 31.

It was also much lower than the 36 mid-cap stocks where they hiked stake in the quarter ended December 31, 2021.

Top mid-caps in which FIIs raised stake

The largest mid-caps that saw offshore portfolio investors turn bullish during the three months ended June 30 include Central Bank of India, Apollo Tyres, Blue Dart Express, Gillette India, Elgi Equipments, Alkyl Amines, Exide, Asahi India Glass, City Union Bank, Bajaj Electricals, Gujarat State Petro and Brigade Enterprises.

FIIs also bought additional stake in Deepak Fertilisers, EID Parry, Aegis Logistics, Balaji Amines, Akzo Nobel, AstraZeneca Pharma, Great Eastern Shipping, Garware Technical, Can Fin Homes and CCL Products.

Lower down the order they bought shares of RattanIndia, Ceat, Bombay Burmah, GHCL, Avanti Feeds, Gujarat Ambuja Exports, Apar Industries, Caplin Point, Edelweiss Financial and Hinduja Global Sol.

Gillette India, Exide Industries, Elgi Equipments, City Union Bank, EID Parry and Akzo Nobel were companies that have seen FIs buys shares for three straight quarters now.

Mid-caps in which FIIs bought 2% or more

As against the previous quarter when FIIs bought over 2% additional stake in four mid-caps, they bought similar stake in similar set of companies’ last quarter: GHCL, Can Fin Homes, City Union Bank and Hinduja Global Solutions.