Promoters sell Rs 55,000 crore worth of stocks in Q1, holding slumps to 8-year low

After selling stocks worth around Rs 54,732 crore in the June quarter, the share of private promoters fell to an 8-year low of 40.58% in Q1, according to a report.

"The previous low was in quarter ending September 30, 2017 when the share of private promoters stood at 40.19 per cent. Over the last 13 quarters or 3 years alone, their share has fallen by a staggering 455 basis points from 45.13 per cent on March 31, 2022," PRIME Database said in a report.

While Indian private promoters share has gone down from 36.86 per cent to 32.56 per cent, ‘foreign’ promoters’ share has gone down from 8.28 per cent to 8.02 per cent during this period, it said.

"While promoter buying is always a positive sign, promoter selling can be due to a wide variety of reasons such as promoters taking advantage of bullish markets to take money off the table, strategic reasons like debt reduction, legacy planning, philanthropy, investment in other ventures and meeting Minimum Public Shareholding (MPS) requirement as also for personal expenses," said Pranav Haldea, Managing Director, PRIME Database Group.

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Relatively lower promoter holding in some of the recent IPO companies and overall institutionalization of market are some of the other reasons behind this fall, he said, adding that investors need not press the panic button when promoters sell and instead should evaluate each case on its merit.

According to Haldea, as long as promoters continue to hold sizeable stake after the sale, with the sale not happening at a huge discount to market price, and there being no significant change in the fundamentals of the company, there is no reason to worry.

Meanwhile, the share of the Government (as promoter) increased to 9.39 per cent from 9.27 per cent during the quarter.

After having overtaken foreign institutional investors (FIIs) in the March quarter, the share of Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) reached yet another all-time high of 17.82 per cent as on June 30, 2025, up from 17.62 per cent as on March 31, 2025, following a net investment of Rs 1.68 lakh crore during the quarter ending June 2025. The domestic Mutual Funds (MFs), flush with retail money coming through SIPs, continued to play a huge role in this with a net investment of Rs 1.17 lakh crore during the quarter, taking their share in companies listed on NSE also to yet another all-time high of 10.56 per cent as on June 30, 2025 (up from 10.35 per cent).

The share of FIIs, on the other hand, declined further to a 13-year low of 17.04 per cent from 17.22 per cent during the quarter, despite a net inflow of INR 38,674 crore (inflow of Rs 29,793 in secondary market and inflow of Rs 8,881crore in primary market).

The share of retail & HNI investors increased marginally to 7.53 per cent and 2.05 per cent respectively as on June 30, 2025 from 7.51 per cent and 1.98 per cent as on March 31, 2025. As such, the combined retail and HNI share increased to 9.58 per cent from 9.49 per cent during the quarter despite being net sellers to the tune of INR 21,132 crore during the quarter, presumably due to profit booking to make use of the market rally.