Uti Picked Up Pivotals Heavily During July

The Unit Trust of India (UTI) was an aggressive buyer in pivotals during July, picking up shares of Reliance Industries, Infosys Technologies, Ranbaxy Laboratories, HCL Technologies and Reliance Petroleum.

Its fund managers were also aggressive buyers at public sector undertaking counters, the data for July on the equity portfolio of UTI's 58 schemes show.

They increased UTI's exposure to navaratnas such as the Oil & Natural Gas Commission (ONGC), Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel), Shipping Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd substantially during the month.

Of the top 50 equity holdings, UTI increased its exposure to 26 scrips while it maintained June's levels in two others.

The top 50 equity holdings account for 86 per cent of the equity investments of Rs 9,255 crore as on July 31, 2002, through its 58 schemes.

The sample does not include UTI's flagship Unit Scheme-64 as its equity portfolio for July 2002 was not available.

The fund house, however, booked profits in frontline cement, pharma and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) stocks.

It sold over 23 lakh shares of Hindustan Lever during the month, accounting for 5.9 per cent of its current holdings, and 3.71 lakh shares of Nestle, accounting for 12 per cent of its current holding.

It also sold part of its holding in pharma majors such as Dr Reddy's Laboratories and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals.

It booked profits in cement counters such as ACC, Larsen & Toubro and Gujarat Ambuja. The fund house's holding in cigarette-to -hotels major ITC Ltd climbed up by a minuscule 2,578 shares to 146 lakh shares currently. It unchanged its holding in Punjab Tractors and EIH.

Its buying interest in Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum is in contrast to the past one year when it had booked profits in the shares.

During July, UTI increased its holding in Reliance Industries by 5.29 lakh shares to 2.47 crore shares. And in Reliance Petroleum, it bought 32.01 lakh shares to take its stake to 6.39 crore shares.

The fund also bought 11.59 lakh shares of Bhel, around 8.10 shares of Zee Telefilms, about 3.85 lakh shares of State Bank of India, 2.50 lakh shares of HCL Technologies, 2.2 lakh shares of ONGC and 1.86 lakh shares of Infosys Technologies.