India's leading life insurers significantly expanded their equity portfolios in May, with Mahindra & Mahindra emerging as the biggest purchase at ₹462 crore according to Nuvama Alternative and Quantitative Research. GMR Airports followed as the second-largest addition at ₹428 crore, while LG Electronics and Lenskart attracted investments of ₹277 crore and ₹242 crore respectively. The data tracks portfolios of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, SBI Life Insurance, HDFC Life Insurance, Tata AIA Life Insurance and Kotak Life Insurance, with consolidated purchases and sales covering four insurers excluding SBI Life due to unavailable factsheet data.
Autobile stocks witnessed robust buying activity throughout May, with Mahindra & Mahindra leading as the biggest addition across insurers at ₹461 crore alone for Kotak Life. Tata AIA Life added Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles worth ₹236 crore and Hindustan Petroleum worth ₹178 crore. SBI Life increased exposure to Tata Steel by ₹199 crore and Persistent Systems by ₹133 crore, while ICICI Prudential Life purchased Hindustan Unilever shares worth ₹215 crore and Tata Consultancy Services worth ₹185 crore. HDFC Life added LG Electronics worth ₹231 crore and Coforge worth ₹162 crore. Recently listed and new-age companies also found favor, with Pine Labs, Lenskart and Premier Energies among prominent additions, while PhysicsWallah, Grindwell Norton and BlackBuck entered the combined portfolios.
Despite some selling during May, financial stocks continued to dominate insurer portfolios with HDFC Bank remaining the biggest holding across the five insurers at ₹26,714 crore investment value. Reliance Industries followed at ₹19,619 crore and ICICI Bank at ₹14,784 crore. However, allocation varied sharply between insurers, with banking accounting for nearly 48% of Kotak Life's equity portfolio and about 41% of SBI Life's portfolio, compared with around 25% weight in the Nifty 100. Tata AIA Life maintained a lower banking allocation of about 15%. Varun Beverages saw the largest combined reduction with insurers selling shares worth ₹396 crore, followed by HDFC Bank with net sales of ₹334 crore.
Bharat Heavy Electricals and Tata Power also experienced sizeable reductions of ₹278 crore and ₹260 crore respectively, while other stocks trimmed included Divi's Laboratories, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Jubilant FoodWorks and UltraTech Cement. At the individual level, SBI Life cut its Larsen & Toubro holding by ₹1,061 crore and Axis Bank by ₹542 crore, while Kotak Life reduced HDFC Bank by ₹416 crore. According to Harshal Dasani, business head at INVasset PMS, the cuts in large banks, engineering and power companies should partly be seen as profit-taking and risk control after sharp gains and high institutional ownership, with insurers becoming more valuation-sensitive and stock-specific in their investment approach.
