MUMBAI: Life Insurance Corp of India, has increased its equity stake in ABB Ltd, the Indian unit of the global engineering major, by about 2.02%, following an acquisition of the equity stake in an open market transaction. The country’s largest insurer bought 4.27 million equity shares in ABB, that has raised LIC’s total equity stake in ABB to 14.08%.. making the insurer one of the largest shareholders in the engineering company.

Shares of ABB were down 1.8% at Rs 437 before close at the BSE.

Monday’s announcement comes close on the heels of similar moves by LIC to increase its shareholding in various blue chip companies. Recently, LIC had had increased its stake in HDFC Bank to over 5% after buying shares from the open market.

At the time of the acquisition of HDFC Bank’s equity stake, LIC’s equity investments currently totalled over Rs 23,000 crore for the financial year. LIC executives said such investments, like the one in ABB, are part of normal open market transactions.

As per information regarding ABB’s shareholding, other non-promoter shareholders with holdings of moree than 1% include Aberdeen Asset Managers (2.03%) and GIC (1.15%).

Earlier, Pune-based Bharat Forge, said its board has approved issue of Rs 250 crore secured debentures on private placement basis to LIC. Earlier this month, LIC had increased its stake in Bharat Forge to 9.21% after acquiring 4.53 million shares through the open market.

The debenture issue is to meet normal capital expenditure, general corporate purposes and long term working capital requirements, Bharat Forge had said.

source: Economictimes

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