UAE fund quits SpiceJet; Rel MF, Birla MF lap up 6% | Birla Mutual Fund & Reliance Mutual Fund purchase bulk deal

UAE-based investment house Istithmar sold almost its entire holding worth Rs 163.76 crore in the no-frills carrier SpiceJet in a bulk deal. Meanwhile two domestic funds- Reliance Mutual Fund and Birla Mutual Fund -- has purchased 1.45 crore shares, or 6.01 per cent stake of SpiceJet at Rs 52 per share, aggregating to Rs75.40 crore, according to the bulk deal data available with the Bombay Stock Exchange.

In two separate bulk deals on the BSE, Reliance Mutual Fund purchased 45 lakh shares of SpiceJet worth Rs 23.4 crore, while Birla MF has bought 1 crore shares worth Rs 52 crore. Istithmar, however,still holds about USD 12 million worth of foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) in the airline.

The airline plans to fly abroad soon after it completes five years of domestic operations in May.

The Dubai liquidity crunch was the prime reason for Istithmar to sell of its stake worth Rs 169 crore, sources said. The leading private equity firm had last December announced raising its stake in SpiceJet to USD50 million from its earlier investment of USD12.5 million, through FCCBs.

SpiceJet was the top-traded share today with the highest turnover of Rs 217.28 crore. The SpiceJet counter closed 1.65 per cent down at Rs 53.80 on the BSE today on a day the BSE Sensex plunged over 3 per cent or 434 points.