Ahead of the Q4 earnings season, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company added Infosys shares to the tune of Rs 675 crore to its kitty in the month of March, according to the data compiled by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research.
The buying came despite Mohit Joshi's resignation from Infosys, only to be appointed large-cap peer Tech Mahindra's managing director and chief executive officer. While Tech Mahindra is expected to post a sequential decline in revenue for the March quarter, analysts expect Infosys' topline to grow 0.1-0.2 percent QoQ in constant currency terms.
On the flip side, Tata AIA Life Insurance and Kotak Life Insurance cut down on their exposure to Infosys to the tune of Rs 39 crore each.
Also Read: Q4FY23 preview: Indian IT services to see muted revenue growth due to global banking turmoil
Apart from Infosys, ICICI Pru Life's prominent additions were Sona BLW Precision (Rs 200 crore) and Bajaj Finance (Rs 182 crore).
“They reduced Reliance Industries (Rs 161 crore), Titan Company (Rs 145 crore) and Maruti Suzuki (Rs 133 crore),” wrote Nuvama Research’s Abhilash Pagaria in the report.
What other insurance companies bought and sold?
SBI Life’s large additions were Reliance Industries (Rs 190 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 149 crore) and TCS (Rs 107 crore). Its major reductions included Sun Pharma (Rs 141 crore), Tata Consumer (Rs 112 crore) and Bajaj Finserv (Rs 101 crore).
Meanwhile, HDFC Life’s large additions were all in the mid and smallcap space. The insurance house bought UNO Minda shares worth Rs 177 crore, Astral Pipes worth Rs 74 crore and CG Power worth Rs 59 crore.
HDFC Life’s prominent reductions were Canara Bank (Rs 88 crore), ABB India (Rs 59 crore) and Page Industries (Rs 40 crore).
New entrants and complete exits
Tube Investments was the newest entrant into SBI Life and HDFC Life's portfolios in March when the company announced its foray into the healthcare space.
Also Read: Tube Investments: Why does the market retain faith in it despite ‘puzzling’ healthcare forays?
The Murugappa group company has identified contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) as its new line of businesses with the potential to grow and expand. To this end, it plans to set up a subsidiary and will invest up to Rs 285 crore in it.
On the other hand, SBI Life completely exited its stake in Butterfly Gandhimati and Kotak Life exited Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals as the two consumer companies announced a merger in March.
For ICICI Pru Life, new entrants included Campus Activewear and Alkem Lab while Medplus Health, Vedanta, Sula Vineyards and Paytm were complete exits.
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