FIIs up stake in Reliance Industries to 7-yr high at about 20%

Company figures among the most widely held stocks with an investor base of close to 30 lakh shareholders

Foreign investors have hiked their stake in corporate behemoth Reliance Industries (RIL) to a seven-year high of about 20%, even as holding of small individual investors has slipped below 10%.

Billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani-led RIL has been among the most preferred stocks in Indian capital markets for domestic and overseas investors for many decades. It also figures among the most widely held stocks with an investor base of close to 30 lakh shareholders.

An analysis of its latest shareholding pattern shows that Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) increased their stake in the company to 19.91% in the latest quarter ended last month, from 18.61% at the end of previous quarter.

This is the highest level of FIIs' holding in RIL since September 2007, when their stake stood at 20.64%. The all-time high FII stake in RIL was witnessed in December 2004, when overseas investors held close to 23% shareholding in the company, shows data available with BSE.

However, the stake held by small individual shareholders (those holding shares worth up to Rs one lakh) fell to 9.86% in the last quarter, from 10.07% as on March 31, 2014.

This is the first time in five years that the holding of such small individual investors in the company has slipped below 10% level. As on June 30, 2009, the shareholding of such investors stood at 9.87%, while their stake has moved closer to even 12% in recent years.

This is also the lowest level of stake held by such small investors ever since listed companies started classifying public individual investors into two separate categories of those holding shares worth up to Rs one lakh and those owning shares worth above Rs one lakh. Prior to such classification, the overall stake of public individual investors in RIL stood at 13.59% in March 2006.

The stake of bigger individual investors (those holding shares worth above Rs one lakh) also fell marginally during the last quarter from 0.81% to 0.80%.

With their current holding of 19.91%, FIIs own shares worth about Rs 63,000 crore in RIL. Once the country's most valued company, RIL currently commands an overall market cap of about Rs 3.16 lakh crore and is now ranked third after Tata group's IT firm TCS (Rs 4.78 lakh crore) and state-run ONGC (Rs 3.51 lakh crore).

While promoters own shares worth about Rs 1.43 lakh crore with a 45.29% stake, domestic institutional investors hold shares worth Rs 34,000 crore (10.93%).

The small individual shareholders now own RIL shares worth about Rs 31,000 crore, while that of bigger individual investors stand at about Rs 2,500 crore. The Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) also own shares worth about Rs 2,000 crore with about 0.61% stake.