What Indian mutual funds bought and sold in August 2026

How to read these numbers

Each scheme's portfolio as on 31 August 2026 is compared with the same scheme's portfolio as on 31 July. A stock's fund change is how many more (or fewer) of those schemes held it. The rupee change is the change in the market value of those holdings, so it includes the stock's own price move: it is not the amount of money funds spent. Schemes without both months in our data are left out rather than counted as buyers or sellers, which excludes, for example, fund houses whose August portfolio was not yet in our data.

LIC: a government sale, bought mostly by mutual funds

On 4 and 5 August the government sold 6.5% of Life Insurance Corporation of India through an offer for sale at ₹382 a share, raising ₹31,552 crore. It was LIC's first stake sale since it listed in 2022, and the government's holding fell from 96.5% to 90%. Mutual funds took most of it: about ₹24,123 crore, or 76.5% of the offer, with ICICI Prudential and SBI Mutual Fund together buying more than half, according to Prime Database figures reported by Business Standard.

The same move is visible in the disclosures. Across the schemes in our data, 52 more funds held LIC at the end of August than at the end of July, and the value they held rose by ₹13,678 crore, by far the largest change in the month. It is also why insurance was 30% of all the net rupee increase across sectors.

The most-bought stocks

Recent listings feature heavily. Tenneco Clean Air India listed in November 2025, and Meesho, Lenskart, LG Electronics India and Billionbrains Garage Ventures, the company behind the Groww app, are all among the last year's listings that funds are still adding. Consumer-internet names stand out as a group: Meesho, Swiggy, PB Fintech, Paytm's parent and Lenskart all gained ten or more holders.

New positions: August's IPOs went straight into portfolios

The stocks no fund in our data held in July were mostly companies that did not trade in July at all. Dhoot Transmission, an auto-electrics maker that listed on 17 August, was in 22 funds by month-end, worth ₹1,761 crore. Shiprocket, listed on 19 August, was in 15 funds (₹426 crore), and Molbio Diagnostics, listed on 17 August, in 10 (₹370 crore). Funds that subscribed in the IPO, or bought in the first two weeks of trading, show up as holders in the very next month's disclosure.

The most-sold stocks

Two patterns stand out. Gas companies lost holders across the board: Gujarat Energy, Petronet LNG and GAIL each shed eight or nine funds. And state-owned financiers REC and Power Finance Corporation were among the biggest decliners, with REC losing the most holders of any stock in the month.

Fewer holders does not always mean less money. Hindustan Unilever lost 11 holders while the value held rose by ₹752 crore, and Infosys lost seven while it rose by ₹2,834 crore: the funds that stayed held more, or the share price rose, or both. A falling fund count shows that ownership is narrowing, not necessarily that money is leaving.

Three of the largest exits were not sales

A full exit means no fund in our data held the stock in August. Three of the largest were corporate actions:

• J.B. Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals (held by 11 funds in July) merged into Torrent Pharmaceuticals with effect from 8 July 2026, at 51 Torrent shares for every 100 J.B. shares; trading in J.B. shares was suspended from 17 July.
• Gujarat State Petronet (4 funds) was merged into Gujarat Gas in the state's 2026 restructuring of the GSPC group, after which Gujarat Gas took the name Gujarat Energy.
• Piramal Enterprises (5 funds) merged into Piramal Finance in September 2025; Piramal Finance has listed in its place since November 2025.

A fund that held J.B. Chemicals did not sell it; it now holds Torrent Pharmaceuticals. Exit lists built from disclosures always need this check before they are read as selling.

Where the money moved, by sector

The full lists, every stock and the July report are on the August Smart Money page. For the bigger picture of what funds hold, see what India's mutual funds actually own.