Company promoters, directors, executives and financial institutions sold shares worth Rs 1,117 crore (Rs 11.17 billion) in the last two months.
According to the company announcements to the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange, 321 shareholders of 100-odd companies sold 137.19 million shares in the open market in January and February 2005.
The more prominent of these were Y C Deveshwar, chairman of ITC, Deepak Parikh, chairman of HDFC, ML Narula, managing director of ACC, Binda Amtek, promoter of Amtek India, Ninu Khanna, managing director of Bombay Dyeing, Sunil Duggal, CEO of Dabur India, Rajiv Bhatnagar, company secretary of NDTV, and Kishor D Sheth, director of Tasc Pharmaceuticals.
The scrips sold include frontline, mid-cap and small-cap stocks. Among the frontline stocks sold are ACC, Bombay Dyeing, HDFC, HDFC Bank, ITC and Satyam Computer Services.
Mid-cap companies whose stocks were sold include Amtek Auto, Lupin Laboratories, MRF, Punjab Tractor, Subex Systems, Satnam Overseas, Rana Sugars and Rama Newsprint.
Promoters of companies whose stocks are currently in the T and Z groups, too, booked profits and sold their stocks in the open market.
The ITC chairman sold 10,000 shares. ITC's Company Secretary B B Chattarjee and Wholetime Director Anup Singh together sold 10,000 shares. HDFC boss Deepak Parikh and directors Renu S Karnad, Keki M Mistry, D N Ghosh and D M Sukthankar sold in combine 115,000 shares of HDFC valued at Rs 9.05 crore (Rs 90.5 million).
HDFC Bank Vice-President Sanjay Dongre sold 4,900 shares in last week of February.
Bombay Dyeing's Ninu Khanna and Joint Managing Director PV Kuppuswamy together sold 95,000 shares. Cipla Director HR Manchanda sold 5,000 shares. Dabur CEO Sunil Duggal sold 6,000 shares.
Shobhana Khanna of Lupin sold 20,000 shares and Mastek Promoter-Director Sunder Radhakrishnan offloaded 20,000 shares in the open market in the last two months.
Sham Sunder, director of Petronet LNG, sold 25,800 shares.