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ICICI Prudential Asset Management, the country’s second largest money manager by assets, largely betted against the wind on Dalal Street all through March, as the benchmark indices climbed record highs.
Under the stewardship of CIO S Naren, the fund house offloaded shares that were on a high, like Axis Bank, ITC, BoB and focussed instead on stocks that were out of focus of the broader market.
The fund house increased stakes in as many as 75 companies from across sectors in March, even as it lightened positions in 145 others.
Ahead of the earnings season that kicks off on April 12, ICICI Prudential AMC added additional 5.28 crore shares of NTPC, followed by NBCC (1.06 crore) and SBI Life Insurance (1.05 crore).
Shares of NTPC rallied 15 per cent last month, while those of NBCC climbed nearly 26 per cent.
The two stocks have also drawn attention of top domestic brokerages.
Religare Broking has a ‘buy’ call on the state-owned construction company NBCC with a target price of Rs 80.
“NBCC’s asset-light business model will help it maintain high returns,” the brokerage said.
JM Financial is bullish on NTPC with a target price of Rs 195.
NTPC has added around 1.27 GW of thermal capacity to commercial operations (through acquisitions in Kudgi, Bongaigaon and Barauni) at a standalone level.
“Our interactions with NTPC management suggest that, 2.2 GW of capacity is expected to commercialise in the next few days, implying a net capacity addition of 2.8 GW by FY19 end (at standalone level), while addition at a consolidated level can be 5 GW,” JM Financial said in a report on March 28.
ICICI Prudential AMC also focussed on the IT majors during the quarter.
It bought 41.62 lakh additional shares of Infosys and 14.19 lakh of Tech Mahindra during the month.
Nifty climbed nearly 8 per cent during the month, as hopes of prime minister Narendra Modi’s return to power and sustained inflows from foreign institutional investors kept the market upbeat through the month.
Infosys is scheduled to announce its fourth quarter earnings on April 12.
Kotak Institutional Equities expects a steady quarter for IT firms with Infosys, TCS and HCL Technologies projected to post strong growth while Wipro and Tech Mahindra are likely to disappoint.
The fund house also bought over 10 lakh shares each in Tata Steel, Marico and Bajaj Corporation.
According to Motilal Oswal Financial Services, the demand environment remained stable for Marico during October-December quarter with good offtake growth.
Rural traction remained intact, exceeding urban growth in the traditional channel.
Newer channels (modern trade and e-commerce) are growing robustly.
The brokerage firm has ‘Buy’ rating on Marico with a target price of Rs 460.
In the midcap space, ICICI Prudential added 3 to 10 lakh shares of NBFC player Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services, chemicals maker Tata Chemicals, quick service restaurant operator Jubilant FoodWorks and battery major Amara Raja Batteries.
In the insurance space, it bought shares of insurance firms HDFC Life Insurance and SBI Life.
Maruti Suzuki, Natco Pharma, Hindalco, Exide Industries, TVS Motor and Vedanta were among other stocks in which ICICI Pru bought additional shares during the month.
On the other hand, it offloaded stakes in nearly 145 companies.
Among them were Vodafone Idea, BHEL, ITC, Power Grid, ONGC, Bank of Baroda, Coal India, Axis Bank, Indian Oil Corporation, Nalco and PVR.
With average asset under management of Rs 3.21 lakh crore, the asset manager was holding nearly 550 stocks in various schemes as of March 31.
