The holding of Tata Sons, the group holding company, increased from 3.11 per cent to 3.16 per cent, while the stake of group investment firm Bambino Investments & Trading increased from 2.11 per cent to 2.17 per cent during the period. The shareholding of Subras Investments, another Tata group company, has increased from 6.64 per cent to 6.70 per cent.

The stake of the financial institutions has dipped marginally to 17.36 per cent, while the insurance companies now have a combined stake of 4.8 per cent ACC. Mutual funds now hold 2.3 per cent stake in the company and the shareholding of the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) dropped from 14.16 per cent to 13.98 per cent.

The change in shareholding is a fallout of ACC's 1:4 rights issue at Rs 110 per share which mopped up Rs 189 crore to finance its expansion plans. The stock hit the circuit at the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday and was quoting at Rs 229.

Company sources confirmed that the equity holding of the "promoter group" has increased marginally due to allotment of additional shares in the company. "Due to the attractive pricing, most shareholders had applied for additional shares over and above the entitlement, and the company has issued three shares for every additional 100 shares appllied for," company sources told The Financial Express.

The Tata group is the largest shareholder group in the company after the financial institutions. Following the controversy on whether the Tatas are the rightful promoters of the cement company, the company officially proclaimed in its rights offer document that the Tata group was the "rightful promoter group".

This marked a significant departure from what ACC had stated at the time of its last rights issue in January 1994. The cement maker had then claimed that it was a professionally managed company without a distinct promoter group and that "provisions regarding lock-in period for equity shares held by promoters do not apply".

Chairman emeritus Nani Palkhivala had also added to the controversy in December last by saying that ACC was not a Tata company, a statement that had caused the Tatas considerable embarrassment.

The Tatas have all along maintained that the group is one of the original promoters of ACC and has several representatives on the ACC board including the present chairman Pallonji S Mistry.

"The Tatas have since inception contributed to the growth of the company through representation on the board of the company, the erstwhile managing agency board and the various executive committees of the company and some of the members of the board are also directors on other Tata companies," ACC had said in its rights offer document.

The shareholding of the Tatas in ACC has risen sharply over the last few months with the group hiking their stake to 14 per cent till end-January from 11.2 per cent as on March 31, 1997. During the last fiscal, the Tatas raised their holding to 14.2 per cent through market purchases.