INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
HDFC Asset Management, India’s largest money manager by assets, was busy buying select banks, PSU and infrastructure stocks all through
August, even as BSE Sensex slid marginally by 0.40 per cent.
The fund house increased exposure to YES Bank, ITC, NHPC, Coal India and SBI;
stocks that have plunged between 7 per cent and 65 per cent since January 2019
It added 1.59 crore shares of Bharat Electronics whose share price has rallied nearly 25 per cent so far this calendar
BSE benchmark Sensex is up just 2.46 per cent year to date.
“Indian equities are offering good value,” Prashant Jain, ED - CIO of HDFC
Asset Management, told ETNow
“When largecaps start offering good value, you are unlikely to get it wrong, because these are big businesses with low leverage
Corporate leverage in India has come down,” he said.
Ace Mutual Fund database showed HDFC AMC held 6.02 crore shares of YES Bank as of
August 31 against 2.57 crore a month earlier, hinting that the fund house sees value in the private sector lender.
“Most of the
businesses, which were in deep pain have either been sold or are in a state where they do not really matter
They are doing reasonably well and things are okay,” he said.
The fund house bought 71.50 lakh additional shares in oil-to-telecom
behemoth Reliance Industries.
Analysts have turned upbeat on the prospects of RIL stock after its telecom arm Reliance Jio this past week
rolled out its broadband offering JioFiber across 1,600 cities.
“This is disruptive
The consumers targeted use data in a big way,” said Deven Choksey, Group Managing Director at KR Choksey Investment Managers
He expects the stock to double in three years.
HDFC AMC also added shares of banking majors ICICI Bank (30 lakh shares), Axis Bank (21.67
lakh) and HDFC Bank (17.51 lakh) besides doing a fair bit of buying on the counters of DCB Bank (16.61 lakh), RBL Bank (7.50 lakh) and
Federal Bank (7.59 lakh).
Saravana Kumar, CIO, Essel Mutual Fund, says retail-focused private lenders with strong balance sheets should do
“These banks will also corner some market shares from NBFCs and PSUs,” he said.
Jain’s team at HDFC Mutual Fund also bought over 10
lakh shares each in Avenue Supermarts, Tata Steel, Delta Corp, BPCL, Bajaj Electricals and Indian Hotels.
Inox Fluorochemicals, Pidilite
Industries, Piramal Enterprises, SRF and Sterling and Wilson were among the fund house’s fresh buys, while it completely exited Havells
India and Shree Cement.
Overall, the fund house increased stakes in as many as 122 companies and offloaded shares of 33 across sectors
It held 314 stocks as of August 31, 2019.
Among the stocks in which the fund house offloaded between 1 lakh to 2.50 crore shares during the
month were BHEL, SAIL, Reliance Nippon Life Asset, NIIT Technologies, Tata Chemicals, Shriram Transport Finance, Just Dial, Bharti Airtel,
Ambuja Cement, Elecon Engineering, Zee Entertainment, Rites, Wonderla Holidays, Solar Industries, S Chand and IndiaMART InterMESH.
It also
sold more than 1 lakh shares of auto majors including Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki and Hero MotoCorp
India this August recorded the steepest drop in auto sales ever since the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) had started
collating monthly wholesale vehicle sales data in 1997-98.
Jain of HDFC Asset Management said he sold auto stocks mainly due to valuations
“The prices have come down, but multiples have not come down because earnings will also de-grow sharply
First investment has to revive, salaries have to go up and only then can we make a case for a sustained revival in consumer