What the Big-3 Mutual Funds bought and sold in April 2022

17 May 2022 , 12:22 PM

For April 2022, equity funds inflows tapered to Rs15,890 crore, a fall of -44.5% from Rs28,600 crore in March 2022. Even the SIP flows in April were lower than March, but at Rs11,863 crore, it showed a lot of resilience and staying power in mutual fund investors. One aspect that is closely tracked is stocks that mutual funds buy and sell. Normally, the focus is on the big funds since it is big AUMs that set equity trends. Let us look at how the AMCs stacked up in terms of equity AUM.

How much equity AUM the Big Boys managed in April 2022

Consolidated AUM fails to capture equity appetite. A better way is to compare top AMCs on Equity AUM. This includes equity holdings across equity funds, hybrids and index funds.

Top Fund Houses ranked By equity fund AUM	Equity AUM (Rs crore) As on 30-April-2022
SBI Mutual Fund	Rs 395,381
ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund	Rs 214,039
HDFC Mutual Fund	Rs 188,891
Nippon India Mutual Fund	Rs 150,724
UTI Mutual Fund	Rs 146,231
Axis Mutual Fund	Rs 139,883
Kotak Mutual Fund	Rs 127,505
Aditya Birla SL Mutual Fund	Rs 110,771
Mirae Asset Mutual Fund	Rs 91,268
DSP Mutual Fund	Rs 65,282

Data Source: AMFI

In April 2022, the equity fund inflows almost offset the AUM reduction due to market correction. The net impact; AUMs across major funds are almost static over last month. Some of the AMCs that recently ramped up equity AUMs substantially include Nippon MF, UTI MF, Axis MF and Mirae MF. However, SBI MF leads equity AUM rankings by a margin.

The top-10 AMCs account for more than 90% of overall industry-wide equity AUM. Here is our quick focus on the buy and sell actions of the 3 biggest AMCs by AUM viz. SBI MF, ICICI Pru MF and HDFC MF for April 2022. In a sense, these 3 AMCs set the tone for equity markets. Here is how the Big-3 churned their portfolios.

Stocks that SBI MF bought and sold in April 2022

SBI Mutual Fund, the largest AMC by overall AUM, is the leader in equity AUM. SBI MF equity AUM is larger than the total AUM of most funds. In fact, the equity AUM of SBI MF at Rs3.954 trillion is 84.72% higher than second ranked ICICI Prudential MF. The top equity holdings of SBI MF are Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Infosys. Here are major shares SBI MF bought and sold in April 2022.

IPOs did not figure among the fresh additions of SBI MF, due to limited action in IPOs. Let us first look at the fresh buys of SBI MF in April 2022. SBI Mutual Fund invested Rs117.80 crore in Mrs Bectors Food Specialities, Rs9.35 crore in Escorts Ltd and Rs1.95 crore in L&T Finance Holdings. There was no other fresh buying done by SBI Mutual Fund in April 2022.

During the month of April 202, SBI MF enhanced exposure to certain stocks in its portfolio. SBI MF added 8.99 lakh shares of Deepak Nitrite, 580.3 lakh shares of Vodafone Idea and 31.12 lakh shares of SBI Cards & Payment Services Ltd in April 2022.

There were several stocks SBI MF exited completely. It sold its full holdings worth Rs16.98 crore in Metropolis Healthcare, Rs7.93 crore stake in Minda Corp, Rs7.81 crore in Goodyear, Rs6.07 crore in Restaurant Brands Asia, Rs2.30 crore in IPCA Laboratories and Rs2.18 crore in Matrimony.com Ltd. SBI MF also exited its small residual stake in Indiamart Intermesh. In addition, SBI MF reduced its stake by 17.67 lakh shares in Indiabulls Housing Finance, 0.87 lakh shares of Mahanagar Gas and 0.71 lakh shares of Astral Ltd.

Stocks that ICICI Prudential MF bought and sold in April 2022

ICICI Pru AMC has now been the second largest fund by overall AUM and also by equity AUM for close to a year. Its equity AUM at Rs2.14 trillion makes this fund house an influential player in the equity space. Among the top equity holdings of ICICI Pru MF are ICICI Bank, Infosys and HDFC Bank. Here is what ICICI Pru MF bought and sold in April 2022.

Like SBI MF, even ICICI Pru MF did not have much to do on the IPO front. However, it did add some interesting fresh positions. In April 2022, ICICI Pru MF invested Rs5.22 crore in GE T&D India Ltd, Rs0.26 crore in Voltamp Transformers and Rs0.11 crore in MTAR Technologies. ICICI Pru MF also added 5.33 lakh shares of La Opala Ltd, 1.04 lakh shares of Affle India Ltd and 0.49 lakh shares of Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd.

During the month of April 2022, ICICI Prudential MF did not take total exit from any of the stocks. However, it did cut its positions in small quantities in select stocks. For instance, the fund cut its positions in Supreme Petrochemicals, BEML Ltd and Pfizer Ltd in small quantities during the month of April 2022.

Stocks that HDFC MF bought and sold in April 2022

HDFC Mutual Fund may have dropped to third positions and has a number of other players breathing down its neck. However, with equity AUM of Rs1.89 trillion, HDFC MF remains an influential voice. As of the close of April 2022, the top equity holdings of HDFC MF were ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC Bank, Infosys and Reliance Industries. The fund also has substantial exposure to L&T, ITC and NTPC. Here is what they bought and sold in April 2022.

Fresh buying was seen to a significant extent only in one stock. HDFC Mutual Fund made fresh buys of Rs27.70 crore in Mirza International. In addition, HDFC MF added 1.40 lakh shares of Sudarshan Chemicals and 0.22 lakh shares of L&T Infotech with a very small quantity of Page Industries being added to its portfolio.

HDFC MF fully exited a number of stocks. It sold its stake worth Rs31.01cr in Adani WIlmar, Rs15.85 crore in Indiabulls Housing Finance, Rs7.83 crore in Pfizer Ltd and Rs2.50 crore in Coromandel International. It also emptied a small portion in Astral Ltd. In addition, HDFC MF reduced positions in NLC India Ltd by 105.38 lakh shares, Clean Science and Technology by 1.20 lakh shares and Gujarat Gas by 1.00 lakh shares.

Clearly, it does look like the big funds have used the market volatility to churn their portfolios fairly aggressively in April 2022. The next month should be more interesting with a slew of IPOs in the month of May 2022.