The surge in stake sales comes amid strong market momentum, following over $30 billion raised in 2024—a year when the benchmark index climbed nearly 9%. So far in 2025, the Nifty50 has advanced 5.1%, reinforcing investor confidence and supporting large secondary market transactions.
Data further reveals that a substantial portion of this year’s block deal activity has been led by multinational corporations and promoters trimming their stakes in listed entities. Meanwhile, institutional investors have taken advantage of ample market liquidity to partially exit their holdings.
One of the largest transactions in recent months was executed by Pastel Ltd, a subsidiary of Singapore-based telecom conglomerate Singtel, which sold over 7 crore shares in Bharti Airtel, raising ₹12,880 crore. The shares were offloaded at an average price of ₹1,814.08 apiece on the NSE.
In a similar vein, British American Tobacco (BAT), the largest shareholder in ITC, raised ₹12,940 crore by selling a 2.5% stake in the company.
Other major deals include Reliance Industries, which sold nearly 4.4 crore shares in Asian Paints for ₹9,600 crore, and Samayat Services, the promoter entity of Vishal Mega Mart Ltd, which offloaded a 20% stake via a block deal, raising ₹10,220 crore. Samayat is an investment vehicle backed by Partners Group and Kedaara Capital.
The block deal momentum shows no signs of slowing down. According to sources, Vedanta Ltd is preparing to offload shares worth up to ₹7,500 crore in Hindustan Zinc. As of March 2025, Vedanta, the promoter entity, held a 63.4% stake in the company.
Interestingly, in many of these cases, Indian subsidiaries are trading at a premium to their global parent companies, making capital redeployment a value-accretive strategy—especially when the stakes being offloaded are non-strategic. On the other hand, large institutional investors and mutual funds, currently holding record levels of cash, have readily absorbed these deals.
(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)
