Lic To Purchase Stocks From Uti Portfolio
The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has decided to buy 41 blue-chip stocks from the Unit Trust of India through off-market deals. At its investment committee meeting held on July 15, the insurance company approved of the purchase.
The investment committee meeting, which unanimously approved the proposal, was attended by the LIC chairman G N Bajpai, directors S A Dave and R P Chitale, and the managing director A Ramamurthy. Another LIC managing director, N C Sharma, attended the meeting as a special invitee. The executive director (investment) P A Balasubramanian, R N Bhardwaj, V R Galkar, M \V Suryanarayana and S Sarkar were also present at the meeting.
The LIC has listed the precise quantities of stocks that it intends to purchase. The current market value of these stocks is around Rs 930 crore, informed sources said.
According to LIC sources, after taking into account the fact that volumes on the bourses have dried up, and that large quantities of shares may not readily be available in the market without the price being affected, it was decided that the corporation would buy the stocks from UTI through direct deals, subject to compliance with the concerned regulatory framework. The off-market deals will also save LIC brokerage charges.
The firms whose stocks the corporation has agreed to pick up include Reliance Industries (50 lakh), Reliance Petroleum (50 lakh), Hindustan Lever (10 lakh), State Bank of India (8 lakh), Tata Steel (15 lakh), Tata Power (2 lakh), Corporation Bank (14.75 lakh), Grasim (5 lakh), Indian Oil Corporation (1 crore), ONGC (1 crore), BSES (15 lakh), Larsen & Toubro (5 lakh), ITC (10 lakh) and VSNL (2 lakh).
The list also includes Indian Rayon, Indian Aluminium, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Nicholas Piramal and Indo Gulf, besides ICE companies like Infosys, NIIT, Global Tele, Satyam Computers and MTNL.
The committee did not approve the purchase of the shares of IDBI, Nalco, Morepan Lab, Raymonds, Vyasya Bank, Bank of Baroda and Bank of India.
In value terms, the maximum outflow for the LIC will be on account of the purchase of one crore shares of ONGC valued at around Rs 162 crore, closely followed by Reliance Industries at Rs 161.43 crore, Indian Oil at Rs 140 crore and ITC at Rs 75.50 crore.
The purchase of these shares will help the corporation increase its stake in Bharat Electronics by 3.12 per cent, in Oriental Bank of Commerce by 2.28 per cent, in ITI by 1.93 per cent, in Shipping Corporation by 1.42 per cent, in Chennai Petroleum by 1.34 per cent, in Indian Oil by 1.28 per cent, in Corporation Bank by 1.23 per cent, in HPCL by 1.18 per cent and in BSES by 1.09 per cent.