BHEL, Apollo Tyres, CESC among mid-cap picks of FIIs

Bulls have clearly snatched the reins of the Indian stock markets from the bears over the last one month and after a run-up, the top stock indices have been in the consolidation zone just 5% below their all-time highs.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), or foreign institutional investors (FIIs), had become more cautious about investing in India over the last one year. In fact, in the October-December 2021 quarter, they were net sellers in Indian equities and pulled out over $5.1 billion in the process.

In the first six months of this year, they made their bearish sentiments apparent with net sales of securities worth over $25 billion on the equities side alone. In June itself they were net sellers in the equities worth over $6 billion.

However, it was not all sell calls by the offshore investors.

We scanned through the list of companies that have disclosed their shareholding patterns to get companies where FIIs took a bullish stance and actually hiked their holding.

In particular, they hiked stake in 60 mid-cap companies with current market valuation of Rs 5,000-20,000 crore during the three months ended June 30. This was 25% more than the 48 mid-cap stocks where they bought additional shares in the preceding quarter.

It was also much more than the 36 mid-cap stocks where they hiked stake in the quarter ended December 31, 2021 and even surpassed the 57 stocks in which they increased their exposure in the three months ended September 30.

Top mid-caps in which FIIs raised stake

The largest mid-caps that saw offshore portfolio investors turn bullish during the three months ended June 30 include BHEL, Gillette India, Alkyl Amines, DCM Shriram, Apollo Tyres, Asahi India Glass, Chambal Fertilisers, Century Plyboards, Exide Industries, Gujarat State Petronet and Elgi Equipments.

FIIs also bought additional stake in IIFL Finance, Balaji Amines, BASF India, City Union Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, KEI Industries, Gujarat Narmada Valley, Lakshmi Machine Works, Glenmark Pharma and CESC.

Lower down the order, there are names like Alok Industries, EID Parry (India), Deepak Fertilisers, Aegis Logistics, Blue Star, HFCL, Akzo Nobel India and Graphite India.

BHEL, Gillette India, DCM Shriram, Chambal Fertilisers, Exide Industries, Century Plyboards, Elgi Equipments, KEI Industries, Alok Industries, City Union Bank, CESC, Gujarat Narmada Valley, EID Parry, Deepak Fertilisers, Akzo Nobel were companies that have seen FIs buys shares for two straight quarters now.

Mid-caps in which FIIs bought 2% or more

As against the previous quarter when FIIs bought over 2% additional stake in five mid-caps, they bought similar stake in four companies GHCL, Gujarat State Fertilizer, IIFL Finance and Hinduja Global Solutions.