FIIs eye BoB scrip

NEW DELHI, Aug 16: Foreign institutional investors have shifted their focus to Bank of Baroda on the bourses. With little or no room for entry into their financial and banking favourites like State Bank of India, HDFC, HDFC Bank, etc., FIIs have started chasing the BoB scrip. According to a senior official of the bank, FIIs who had missed the bus at the time of the initial public offering, hold nearly four per cent of the bank’s equity today.

Although there is plenty of room for accumulation as the investment ceiling is far away, it is learnt that FIIs with large orders are virtually chasing small investors who hold less than 1,000 shares. The result: the BoB scrip has shot up by nearly 20 per cent in the last three trading sessions touching a high of Rs 173 on BSE on Wednesday. Over two lakh shares, each on Tuesday and Wednesday, changed hands on BSE with the supplies coming mainly from domestic institutions who were seen booking profits, say brokers. The volumes in the scrip, since its listing in February this year, have been low ranging from 100 to 9,000 shares.

One of the reasons for such low volumes is that apart from the government, the equity is widely held by a large number of small shareholders. As many as 2.7 lakh or 90 per cent of the public shareholders are small investors holding less than 1,000 shares. The government holds 66.2 per cent of the Rs 296 crore equity of the bank. Most of the retail investors hold 100 to 500 shares and they are scattered in small towns and rural areas.