Promoter hikes stake in L&T Finance Holdings

Shares of L&T Finance Holdings surged as much as 16.2% on Wednesday —the most since their listing — after promoter Larsen & Toubro raised stake in the financial services firm through bulk deals and market purchase. While L&T picked up 21.22 million shares at an average price of Rs 83.52 on the NSE, the engineering behemoth also bought another 20.27 million shares from the BSE. The combined transaction is valued at Rs 3.48 billion. The sellers are not immediately known.

According to insider trading data available on BSE, Larsen & Toubro, which owned a 63.5% stake in L&T Finance Holdings at the end of December, had acquired 14.3 million shares between March 17-21. This along with Wednesday’s acquisition, the total purchase by the promoter would add up 55.75 million shares, taking the promoter holding to 65.8%.

The L&T Finance stock, the best performer on BSE 200, rallied 20.2% in intra-day trade on Wednesday. The stock has been gaining over the last five sessions, having surged close to 35% against the Nifty50 gains of 3.5% during the same period.