Promoters and large shareholders are cashing in on a stock market rebound, offloading shares worth over ₹24,000 crore in May and June. According to Prime Database, secondary share sales by promoters and long-term shareholders rebounded in May to ₹15,900 crore and remained robust in June at ₹9,000 crore, marking a significant revival after activity slowed sharply in March when block and bulk deals were marginal. The surge is driven by strong domestic institutional investor appetite fueled by SIP inflows, contrasting with the lull earlier in the year during the West Asia conflict in March and early April.
Among notable secondary market transactions in the past month, Vedanta's promoter entity Twin Star Holdings sold shares worth ₹1,896 crore, Srinivasan Ravi offloaded 2% stake in Craftsman Automation in a ₹485.6 crore block deal, and PB Fintech's chairman and CEO Yashish Dahiya and Vice Chairman Alok Bansal sold nearly 0.8% stake worth ₹665.38 crore. Anand Rathi Financial Services sold 1.74% stake in Anand Rathi Wealth for ₹500 crore, while Actis Pine Labs Investment Holdings offloaded 2.08% stake in Pine Labs in a ₹371 crore block deal. Recent NSE data shows continued activity with Bliss GVS Pharma Ltd trading at ₹490.00 with multiple transactions including 1,150,000 shares at ₹529.90 and Infosys Limited seeing 514,800 shares traded at ₹1,036.70.
The pickup in large market deals is in contrast with the phase in March and early April when such transactions had dried up with promoters and investors holding back on share sales. As reported by The Economic Times, the Nifty 500 index is up nearly 12% from March 30, while the Nifty Midcap 150 index has risen nearly 17%, and the Nifty Smallcap 250 index has surged about 23.5%. The uneven IPO pipeline in recent months has also benefited secondary market deals, with investors having more money to deploy as IPO activity remained relatively muted from March to June.
Buyers in the majority of these deals have been large domestic mutual funds, flush with cash, bolstered by steady flows of retail money into equity schemes through Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs). According to Prakash Bulusu, Joint CEO of IIFL Capital, promoters and early investors are using favourable market conditions to monetise holdings, rebalance portfolios and meet liquidity needs. Gaurav Bhandari, CEO of Monarch Networth Capital, noted that with IPO activity relatively muted from March to June, investors had more money to deploy, which was moving into the secondary market.
Some of the share sales are also on account of the expiry of IPO lock-ins that allow promoters, anchor investors and other pre-IPO shareholders to sell their holdings. As reported by Dev Chandrasekhar, Partner at Transcendum, lock-in expiries have coincided with deep institutional appetite, with sovereign pools, global asset managers, and domestic MFs flush with SIP inflows absorbing supply at scale. Prakash Bulusu sees the momentum continuing given the pipeline of exits and continued institutional appetite, citing a large pipeline of private equity exits, promoter stake sales, strategic reallocations and pre-IPO investor monetisation opportunities.
