Check out the mid-cap stocks where FIIs cut stake last quarter

Indian stock indices are in the midst of a consolidation after a bloodbath, leading to a sharp fall in stock prices after the market tested a previous all-time peak just a week ago. The top indices have lost nearly 7% over the last one week.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), or foreign institutional investors (FIIs), had become more cautious about investing in India over the last few months. In fact, in the October-December 2021 quarter, they were net sellers in Indian equities and pulled out over $5.1 billion the process.

In the first three weeks of this year, FIIs had shown their bearish sentiments apparent with net sales of securities worth $1.1 billion.

We scanned through the list of companies that have disclosed their shareholding patterns to get names where FIIs cut stake. In particular, they sold stake in as many as 67 companies that have a valuation of $1 billion or more last quarter.

FIIs were bearish on life insurers, energy and metals, selective FMCG and retail stocks, auto and auto ancillary firms, a few banking stocks, a couple of Adani group stocks, commodities, pharma and hospital chains.

Interestingly, the Adani group stocks that faced FII sales were different from the previous quarter when another set of its group companies faced a selloff by offshore investors.

Mid-caps that saw FII selling

FIIs cut stake in around 44 mid-caps, or companies that currently have a market capitalisation between Rs 5,000 crore and Rs 20,000 crore.

GR Infraprojects, KPIT Technologies, Happiest Minds, Affle, Indian Bank, Nuvoco Vistas Corp, IndiaMART, Aditya Birla Sun Life, IIFL Wealth Management, Metropolis Healthcare, Hindustan Copper and IIFL Finance were among the large mid-caps seeing FII selloff.

Among others, Galaxy Surfactants, Laxmi Organic, Krishna Institute, City Union Bank, Amara Raja Batteries and Anupam Rasayan also saw offshore investors snip their holding for the quarter ended December 31.

Lower down the order within the mid-caps were companies such as Godrej Agrovet, Eris Lifesciences, IDFC, CreditAccess Grameen, Century Textiles, Indigo Paints, Jindal Stainless (Hisar), RBL Bank, Shyam Metalics, Lux Industries, Mahanagar Gas, HUDCO, McDonald’s franchisee Westlife Development and EKI Energy Services.

If we look at mid-cap stocks where FIIs sold 2% of more stake last quarter, we get three names: IIFL Wealth Management, IIFL Finance and Mahanagar Gas.