Hope springs eternal, inexplicable as it may be, when it comes to stocks trading in single digits! As of June FY19, individual shareholders (category that includes retail investors) held around 60 crore shares in Vodafone Idea (Vi), representing a 2.09 per cent stake in the company. The share then was trading at around ₹12. Fast forward to today, the same category of shareholders now own 561 crore shares, representing nearly 12 per cent of the company.
A couple of quarters back, prior to the Government of India converting dues from Vi into equity, thereby resulting in dilution of existing investors’ stake, this holding by individual investors represented a significant 18 per cent stake in Vi. Thus, over the last four years, as the institutional investors dumped the stock, individual investors have built up positions while the stock languished in single digits through much of this…
