State-owned life insurer LIC lowered its exposure in 15 blue-chip firms during the January-March quarter with sale of shares that are currently worth over ₹6,300 crore.

At the same time, LIC increased its stake in 12 Sensex firms by purchasing shares worth over ₹13,000 crore, as per the shareholding pattern of 30-bluechip companies on the BSE.

In two companies — Tata Steel and Tata Power — LIC’s stake remained unchanged during the quarter. It has not held any stake in Hindustan Unilever in the past few quarters.

LIC holds 17 per cent stake in Larsen & Toubro, the highest among the Sensex firms.

At current share prices, LIC offloaded shares worth ₹6,313 crore in 15 Sensex constituents. At the same time, the insurance giant picked up scrips worth ₹13,357 crore in 12 blue-chip companies.

The sell-off by the Life Insurance Corporation of India coincided with a surge of 5.74 per cent in BSE’s benchmark index Sensex during the January-March quarter.

LIC decreased its stake in Reliance Industries, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Tata Motors, ONGC, Gail India, Maruti Suzuki, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Sun Pharma, Hero MotoCorp, Sesa Sterlite, Larsen & Toubro and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories among others during the last quarter.

On other hand, the biggest institutional investor in the stock market shored up its holding in Bharti Airtel, BHEL, NTPC, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Coal India, ITC, Cipla, Hindalco, Bajaj Auto, State Bank of India (SBI) and Mahindra & Mahindra.

Sun Pharma saw LIC reduce its exposure to nil, while its stake in ICICI Bank dropped by 0.96 percentage point to 8.74 per cent.

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