- by Anapeksha Mukherjee
- 28th Aug 2020
Stocks which made LIC a profit of Rs. 10,000 crore since April 1
LIC(Life Insurance Corporation of India), India’s biggest institutional investor made a good amount of money on equity stocks in the rally from the March lows.
M R Kumar, LIC Chairman says that the PSU insurance on its equity portfolio had a profit of Rs. 10,000 croresince April 1. There’s been a 30% gain during this period by Domestic equity banchmark Sensex and Nifty.
96% of LIC’s top stocks have had positive returns so far in fiscal year 21, says the data available with Ace Mutual Fund. These returns have been with Alok industries rallying the most at 729 per cent to Rs 32.50 as of August 21 from Rs 3.92 on March 31.
Ballarpur Industries, Jaiprakash Power Ventures, Reliance Communications, Digjam, GTI Infrastructure, CG Power, Rolta India, Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Power and Dalmia Bharat among others have rallied almost 200-500%. LIC keeps a constant stake in all these companies throughout June Quarter. Chances are that LIC must have some profits on these stocks during July and August. The data for september quarter shareholding will be available in October.
The company completely or partially sold its stake to atleast 45 firms during the June Quarter. LIC held stakes in 329 companies as of June 30 against 360 firms at the end of March quarter with an equity portfolio of Rs. 6 lakh crore. As of march 31, there was a huge cash deployment in equities at the market bottom which can be deduced from the equity portfolio of Rs. 4.30 lakh crore.
Chairman MR Kumar told ETNow on monday,”I cannot give the figures. Post the lockdowns for at least two months, we were only buying. We hardly offloaded anything and then subsequently we did some selling as well”.
This action increased stakes in more than 50 companies, including Suzlon Energy NSE -1.28 %, TCS NSE -0.44 %, Tata Power, Titan, Tata Steel, RIL, PNB, ONGC NSE 0.25 % and Maruti Suzuki. There was a 10-60% increase in these shares during April 1 and August 21.
LIC reduced its holdings in Bajaj Auto, Bengal and Assam Company, Britannia Industries, Cadila Healthcare, Cipla and Garden Reach Shipbuilders stocks during June quarter.
LIC also sold some shares of Mid and small firms like Icra, Kirloskar Engine Oil, Pidilite Industries and Seshasayee Paper & Boards and made up to 50% profit in the last 5 months.
75.90 per cent market share in terms of number of policies and 68.74 per cent in terms of first-year premium as of fiscal year 20 were held by the insurance company.
