MFs offload Lupin, TCS and Motilal Oswal shares

Mutual fund houses offloaded shares of pharmaceutical major Lupin Ltd, information technology (IT) giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Motilal Oswal Financial Services over the last two months.

While fund managers reduced their cash holdings and went on a buying spree over the last two months, they avoided these stocks.

Nearly Rs 900 crore worth of shares of these three companies were off-loaded by fund managers.

Lupin was the most affected (in terms of value) as the counter witnessed sell off of 2.15 million shares worth Rs 432 crore.

For TCS, the sell off was worth Rs 261 crore or little over a million shares. With this, TCS lost its position in the top 10 holdings of mutual funds too.

In terms of number of shares, the Motilal Oswal scrip was the most sold as equity fund managers truncated holdings by over 70% - bringing down the total shares held to 2.69 million in March, against 9.89 million in January.

Interestingly, the sell call on Lupin and TCS came weeks before the two firms continuously lost on the stock exchanges in April.

Lupin, which had hit a 52-week high of Rs 2,112 early this month, is currently down 17% from its peak at Rs 1,758. Fund managers managed to sell Lupin when it was fast rising above Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000.

In case of TCS, the profit booking happened at around Rs 2,500-2,700. The stock, post its Q4 numbers, is down about 13% from at Rs 2,426 against its recent high of Rs 2,774.

Other counters that witnessed heavy selling include Bosch Ltd (Rs 182 crore), Mahindra & Mahindra (Rs 170 crore), HCL Technologies (Rs 139 crore), Oil India (Rs 138 crore), BPCL (Rs 134 crore) and Havells India (Rs 123 crore).

TATA Consultancy Services ( TCS )