Cashing in on the opportunities galore courtesy the spurt in Indian equities, foreign fund house Citigroup Global Markets has raised about Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) by selling shares of 24 blue chip firms in just nine trading sessions.
Analysing the block deals data during the past nine trading sessions on the Bombay Stock Exchange, Citigroup Global Markets (Mauritius) has sold 5.719 million shares of as many as 24 firms, including Sensex heavyweights Reliance Industries, Infosys Technologies, ICICI Bank, for an aggregate amount of Rs 387 crore (Rs 3.87 billion).
A block deal is a trade, with a minimum quantity of 500,000 shares or minimum value of Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) executed through a single transaction of the stock exchange.
Out of the 24 firms, 21 are included in the 30-share Sensex.
"The emerging markets like India are giving good returns to the foreign investors. So one of the reasons for Citigroup Global to sell shares of these companies may be to book profit available at higher level. The scenario in the domestic market is positive so clients are offloading the shares held by them," Ashika Stock Brokers Research Head Paras Bothra said.
The Sensex gained nearly 7 per cent between June 8-June 22 to settle at 17,749.69 points.
The foreign fund house has sold a total of 628,000 shares of RIL for Rs 63.98 crore (Rs 6.398 million) and 1,13,058 shares of IT major Infosys Technologies for Rs 60.79 crore (Rs 6.079 million) in various block deals witnessed in the period between June 9 and June 22.
As per the data available with the BSE, these shares were picked up by two global investment players Royal Bank of Scotland NV and ABN Amro Bank NV.
"This is a negotiation deal, the client wanted to sell and the buyers were open to buy. The transaction was driven by profit booking," SMC Capital Vice-President Rajesh Jain said.
On June 9 alone, Citigroup offloaded a major chunk of shares by selling equities of 22 domestic companies, including 17 Sensex firms like RIL, ICICI Bank, HDFC and Infosys among others, in block deals aggregating to Rs 231.56 crore (Rs 2.315 billion).
Similarly, on June 11, it offloaded shares of seven firms, including six Sensex companies like RIL and ICICI Bank, valued at Rs 109.58 crore (Rs 1.096 billion) and on June 18, the investment firm again offloaded shares of two Sensex firms, Infosys and HDFC, in block deals valued at Rs 46.08 crore (Rs 460.8 million).
Other Sensex companies in which Citigroup Global has offloaded its stake were -- HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, BHEL, Hindalco Industries, HUL, ITC, Jaiprakash Associates, Jindal Steel, L&T, M&M, NTPC, ONGC, SBI, Sterlite Industries, Tata Steel, TCS and Wipro. While the rest included Axis Bank, GAIL India and IDFC.
But, Citigroup Global is also buying shares which are available at attractive prices on the bourses.
It bought 30,64,952 shares of private sector lender Yes Bank at Rs 263 per share, aggregating to Rs 80.60 crore (Rs 806 million) from the open market in a bulk deal on Tuesday.
