UTI-II booked profits in 3 selloff stocks

Fund sold 85.36 lakh shares in 21 Sensex firms in February

The UTI Mutual Fund (UTI-II) booked partial profits in three stocks which are in the govenment's selloff list in February 2004.

The UTI-II's equity portfolio of 39 schemes for February, whose data was released yesterday, show that the fund sold 7,15,150 IPCL shares, 2,28,980 shares of GAIL India and 23,585 shares of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) before or around the announcement of the government's selloff offer.

According to the fund's equity portfolio data, it liquidated portfolio worth Rs 540 crore in February alone. It also bought Rs 240 crore of securities, thereby becoming a net seller of Rs 300 crore.

In the aggregate, the fund sold 17.22 million shares of 103 companies and bought 6.76 million shares of 61 companies in February.

The fund's shareholding in 257 firms remained unchanged at the December 2003 levels.

Fund managers at UTI-II continued to liquidate Sensex and other frontline stocks.

The fund sold 85.36 lakh shares in 21 Sensex companies, collectively valued at Rs 291 crore.

The fund sold over eight lakh shares each in Gujarat Ambuja Cement, Hindustan Lever and HPCL.

It sold six lakh shares each in Bharti Tele-Ventures and Zee Telefilms. Reliance group stocks lost favour with UTI-II MF managers.

The fund house sold 7.15 lakh shares of IPCL and 1.70 lakh shares of Reliance Industries.

Also, the fund managers sold their entire holding of 5.44 lakh shares in Reliance Energy in February. As many as 12 UTI schemes were holding 5.44 lakh shares of the company in January 2004.

The fund's profit booking calls spread to Mahindra & Mahindra in which it sold 4.35 lakh shares, Maruti Udyog (sold 3.58 lakh shares), Jindal Iron and Steel (sold 85,000 shares), National Aluminium (10.22 lakh shares), GAIL India (2.29 lakh shares) and Asian Paints (1.86 lakh shares).

The fund sold 15.98 lakh shares of Vijaya Bank, which it had acquired in the bank's public issue.

Other bank stocks in the UTI selling list were Canara Bank (4.49 lakh shares), UTI Bank (2.39 lakh shares), ICICI Bank (5.05 lakh shares) and HDFC Bank (2.88 lakh shares).

It also sold a few public sector undertaking (PSU) stocks.

Among the PSU stocks, UTI Mutual sold 8.27 lakh shares of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL), around 9.35 lakh shares of SAIL India and 5.96 lakh shares of Bharat Petroleum Corporation.

The fund house also sold 5.06 lakh shares of BHEL, 2.45 lakh shares of MTNL, 23,585 shares of ONGC and 3.68 lakh shares of RCF. Infotech stocks were also in the fund's sell list. It sold 4.42 lakh shares of HCL Technologies, 1.15 lakh shares of Hughes Software and 18,535 shares of Infosys Technologies.

While the selling spree was on, the fund house channeled a part of the realised profits for buying around six million shares of 61 stocks.

The fund bought 2.45 lakh shares of Patni Computer. It bought around eight lakh shares each of Hero Honda and ACC, over six lakh shares of Satyam Computer, 4.77 lakh shares of Tata Steel and 4.11 lakh shares of Reckitt & Benckiser.