Life Insurance Corporation has lowered its exposure in 17 blue-chip firms during the October- December quarter, selling off shares that are currently worth over Rs 11,000 crore.
LIC's holding increased in eight Sensex companies during the quarter, showed an analysis of the shareholding pattern of 30-bluechip companies.
The state-owned insurer's stake in three companies - ONGC, GAIL and Sesa Sterlie - remained unchanged during the same period. LIC did not hold any stake in Hindustan Unilever in the past two quarters, while data for one company was not available.
Its stake in Larsen & Toubro rose marginally. LIC holds 17.06 per cent stake in L&T, the highest it has among the Sensex firms.
At current share prices, LIC offloaded shares worth Rs 11,306 crore in a total of 17 Sensex constituents. At the same time, the insurance giant picked up scrips to the tune of Rs 3,402 crore in eight blue-chip companies, resulting in a net outflow of Rs 7,904 crore in all the Sensex firms together.
The sell-off by LIC coincided with a surge of 9.24 per cent in BSE's benchmark index Sensex during the quarter.
LIC decreased its stake in energy giant Reliance Industries, telecom player Bharti Airtel, IT firms - Wipro and Infosys, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank among others during the three months ended December 31, 2013.
It also trimmed holding in four Tata group companies -- Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Tata Power.
On other hand, the biggest institutional investor in the stock market, shored up holding in BHEL, Sun Pharma, State Bank of India, HDFC, NTPC, ITC, and Coal India.
Tata Power saw LIC reduce exposure by 2.1 percentage point, while its stake in Maruti dropped by 1.28 percentage point and LIC holding in Infosys and Wipro dropped by 1.24 percentage points each.
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