As the shares of MMTC were locked in lower circuit for the second day running on Friday, losing Rs 18.90 to remain frozen at Rs 170.15 on the NSE till the close, a look at the pre-OFS shareholding pattern shows that mutual funds and individual investors will have to bear a major portion of the loss.

What is surprising is that while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) — banks, domestic financial institutions and insurance firms — have lightened their holdings in the stock during the last quarter of 2012-13, others including retail investors have rushed to fill the vacuum that has turned out to be bad call.

MMTC has an equity base of Rs 100 crore, of which 99.33 per cent was with the Central Government before the OFS on Thursday. While the FIIs had stayed away from the stock barring a token holding, the retail investors were increasing their holding during Q4 of last fiscal.

According to the data available with the BSE, the DIIs, whose stake in the company’s equity was 0.50 per cent in the September and December ending quarters of 2012-13, cut back their holding to 0.31 per cent in the March quarter. But others, including individual investors nearly doubled their holding in the stock during Q4 of 2012-13..

In the non-institutional category, 1,185 corporate bodies had a total holding of 10.42 lakh shares forming 0.10 per cent of the pre-OFS equity. But at the end of March, 47,624 individual shareholders together held 24.72 lakh shares in MMTC, constituting 0.25 per cent of the equity. About 9,100 fresh retail investors have entered during January-March quarter.

There were also 440 non-resident individuals who held in the company 48,229 shares.

yegya.narayanan@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW