What India's mutual funds actually own
We took every equity position in the latest portfolios of 868 schemes from 21 fund houses and read them by stock instead of by fund. Ten companies account for 29% of the money. Half of all schemes own the same bank.
By Meet Shah · Published
The short version
- The ten largest holdings make up 29.2% of the ₹39.95 lakh crore of equity these schemes hold. The largest 100 make up 69.3%.
- ICICI Bank is in 439 of the 868 schemes. HDFC Bank is in 414 and State Bank of India in 400.
- 28 stocks are owned by every one of the 21 fund houses in the data.
- At the other end, 167 stocks are held by exactly one scheme, and the median stock is held by 15.
- Banks alone are a fifth of everything: 20.8% of the rupees.
- Index funds and ETFs are 49% of the schemes but hold only 24.3% of the money.
Ten companies, 29% of the money
The median diversified equity fund in our data holds 55 stocks, and investors often own several such funds, so it is natural to assume the money is spread wide. It is not. Across every scheme in our data, the ten largest positions by rupee value add up to 29.2% of all the equity held. The largest 25 come to 42.9%, and the largest 100 to 69.3%. The other 1,053 stocks share what is left.
| Stock | Schemes holding it | Value held | Share of all equity |
|---|---|---|---|
| ICICI Bank | 439 | ₹2,24,218 Cr | 5.6% |
| HDFC Bank | 414 | ₹2,10,347 Cr | 5.3% |
| Reliance Industries | 366 | ₹1,30,081 Cr | 3.3% |
| Axis Bank | 371 | ₹1,03,211 Cr | 2.6% |
| State Bank of India | 400 | ₹1,02,295 Cr | 2.6% |
| Bharti Airtel | 382 | ₹98,552 Cr | 2.5% |
| Larsen & Toubro | 323 | ₹83,422 Cr | 2.1% |
| Kotak Mahindra Bank | 332 | ₹75,196 Cr | 1.9% |
| Infosys | 343 | ₹71,801 Cr | 1.8% |
| Eternal | 321 | ₹66,592 Cr | 1.7% |
Five of the ten are banks. ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank on their own are 10.9% of all the equity in the funds we track: as much as the 891 smallest stocks by value put together.
Half of all schemes own the same bank
Counting schemes rather than rupees tells the same story from another angle. ICICI Bank appears in 439 of the 868 schemes, 50.6% of them. That count includes index funds, ETFs, hybrid funds and sector funds, which is exactly the point: a bank this large ends up in almost every kind of portfolio that is allowed to hold it. Twelve stocks are each held by more than 300 schemes.
| Stock | Schemes | Share of all schemes | Fund houses (of 21) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ICICI Bank | 439 | 50.6% | 21 |
| HDFC Bank | 414 | 47.7% | 21 |
| State Bank of India | 400 | 46.1% | 21 |
| Bharti Airtel | 382 | 44.0% | 21 |
| Axis Bank | 371 | 42.7% | 21 |
| Reliance Industries | 366 | 42.2% | 21 |
| Infosys | 343 | 39.5% | 21 |
| Kotak Mahindra Bank | 332 | 38.2% | 21 |
| Mahindra & Mahindra | 332 | 38.2% | 20 |
| Larsen & Toubro | 323 | 37.2% | 21 |
Twenty-eight stocks are held by every one of the 21 fund houses. Beyond the obvious names above, the list includes Bajaj Finance, Maruti Suzuki, NTPC, Shriram Finance, Divi's Laboratories, Eicher Motors, Adani Ports and One 97 Communications, the company behind Paytm.
A long tail behind the giants
Ownership thins out quickly below the top. The median stock in the data is held by 15 schemes, and 494 of the 1,153 stocks, more than four in ten, are held by fewer than ten.
| Schemes holding the stock | Number of stocks |
|---|---|
| 1 | 167 |
| 2 to 4 | 190 |
| 5 to 9 | 137 |
| 10 to 49 | 313 |
| 50 to 99 | 164 |
| 100 to 199 | 142 |
| 200 to 299 | 28 |
| 300 or more | 12 |
Which group a stock falls into says something about its fund ownership. A stock held by 300 schemes is owned through index funds, large-cap funds and hybrids alike, and new money into any of them reaches it. A stock held by four small-cap funds depends on four managers' decisions. You can see which is true of any stock you own on its page: for example, the holders of ICICI Bank.
Banks are a fifth of everything
| Sector | Value held | Share of all equity |
|---|---|---|
| Banks | ₹8,30,408 Cr | 20.8% |
| Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology | ₹2,36,692 Cr | 5.9% |
| IT - Software | ₹2,19,203 Cr | 5.5% |
| Finance | ₹2,15,767 Cr | 5.4% |
| Automobiles | ₹1,94,297 Cr | 4.9% |
| Retailing | ₹1,80,646 Cr | 4.5% |
| Petroleum Products | ₹1,53,075 Cr | 3.8% |
| Auto Components | ₹1,43,561 Cr | 3.6% |
Add the non-bank lenders the disclosures file under “Finance” and lending businesses come to 26.2% of all the equity in these funds. No other sector reaches 6%.
Index funds: half the schemes, a quarter of the money
425 of the 868 schemes are index funds, ETFs or smart-beta funds, 49% of the total. But they hold 24.3% of the rupees; actively managed and hybrid schemes hold the rest. Part of the reason is that many passive schemes are small copies of one another: twenty schemes hold the Nifty 50 alone, as we show in same portfolio, different price.
The passive share differs a lot from stock to stock. Of all the fund money in Reliance Industries, 47.3% sits in index funds and ETFs, the highest among the ten largest holdings. For Eternal, the company behind Zomato and Blinkit, it is 25.8%: most of its fund ownership comes from managers who chose it rather than from an index that includes it.
What this means if you own several funds
If you hold two or three diversified equity funds, the odds are high that you own ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Reliance several times over, in similar proportions. That is not wrong in itself, but it is less diversification than the number of funds suggests. Two ways to check your own case: compare the funds you hold with the fund overlap tool, or open the page of a stock you care about and see how many of your funds appear among its holders. In which large-cap funds those two banks lead, and by how much, is the subject of our look at the biggest bets.