Promoters of 28 companies from the BSE 500 index have pledged over 50% of their holdings in the December quarter of current financial year.
CG Power and Industrial, Kwality and Reliance Naval and Engineering are the three companies whose promoters have pledged 100% in the third quarter, shows the report from Kotak Institutional Equities.
Pledged holdings of BSE 500 stocks shows that the percentage of promoter pledging was steady in the December 2018 quarter in comparison to the September quarter. The percentage of pledged promoter holdings was at 6.7% in the December quarter similar to that of September 2018.
“Outstanding promoters pledged shares were `1.96 lakh crore, which is about 1.47% of the total BSE 500 Index’s market capitalisation in December 2018. Promoters of 116 companies pledged their holdings among BSE 500 Index stocks compared to 114 companies in September 2018 quarter,” said the report.
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Six companies had more than 90% of their promoter holdings pledged, which include companies IL&FS Transportation Networks, Sterlite Technologies and Hindustan Construction Co.
“We clarify that pledging of shares does not necessarily imply that a company or a promoter is under financial stress; banks (lenders) could have sought additional security in the form of promoter shares,” said the Kotak report.
Market participants say that, promoters often use shares owned by them as collateral for loans. Shares of companies with high pledging of promoter holding tend to witness volatility. However, stocks with more shares pledging witnessed significant fall in market capitalisation in the last one month.
In the third quarter of 2018-19, highest increase in pledged promoter holdings includes companies like Indiabulls Real Estate, Coffee Day Enterprises, Jain Irrigation Systems, Infibeam Avenues and Jindal Steel & Power.
Promoters of Indiabulls Real Estate had pledged 40% of their holding in the September quarter, which increased to 61.1% in the December quarter – a rise of 21.1 percentage points – show the data from Kotak Institutional Equities.
Companies in the Nifty 50 Index with higher promoter pledging include Zee Entertainment (59.4%), Adani Ports & SEZ (45.5%), JSW Steel (43.6%), IndusInd Bank (26.4%) and Indiabulls Housing Finance (12.7%), said the report.
In the last one year, the stocks in which the promoters have pledged their entire holdings have given negative returns in the range of 62%-93%. Stock prices of of Kwality has lost 92.84% in the last one year on BSE.
