Infosys shares drop 4%; likely to impact mutual funds

Shares of Infosys have come off nearly 30% from their 52-week high of Rs 1,278 touched in June 2016

The four per cent drop in shares of Infosys on Thursday is likely to impact several equity mutual fund (MF) schemes. Infosys is one of the most-owned stocks by India's equity schemes with an allocation of over three per cent, or Rs 19,500 crore, of the total equity asset under management. Nearly 460 equity schemes (including exchange-traded funds or ETFs, Equity Linked Savings Scheme, and balanced funds) have invested in shares of Infosys. Put together, MFs own 191 million shares of the information technology (IT) major, making it the most-owned stock in the sector. Despite negative news flows for Indian IT sector over the last few quarters, Infosys has continued to remain among the top five picks of fund managers. 

Shares of Infosys have come off nearly 30 per cent from their 52-week high of Rs 1,278 touched in June 2016. Fund managers say given the weightage of Infosys in benchmark indices, they are bound to take exposure to the stock.

Though in March, fund managers were seen selling 2.7 million shares worth of Rs 274 crore in the Bengaluru-based company. 

HDFC Equity Fund, managed by Prashant Jain, has invested the most (in value term at Rs 1,204 crore as on March 31, 2017) in Infosys, taking scheme's exposure to 6.71 per cent. It is followed by HDFC Prudence, another scheme from HDFC Mutual Fund. The top 15 equity schemes (excluding ETFs) have invested over Rs 8,600 crore in Infosys. Mutual Fund Equity Schemes which have pumped the most in Infosys ttocks.