ITC Shares Change Hands Amid Report Of British American Tobacco Offloading Stake

ITC Ltd.'s equity changed hands in a large trade amid reports that its largest public shareholder, British American Tobacco, was preparing to offload shares of its Indian partner.

About 12 million equity shares (0.09% stake) changed hands in a large trade on Monday, according to Bloomberg data. Buyers and sellers weren't known.

Bloomberg reported separately that BAT was looking to sell this week, citing people aware of the knowledge.

The maker of Lucky Strike cigarettes has been speaking with Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. about a potential divestment of around $2 billion to $3 billion in ITC stock through block trades, Bloomberg said.

The London-listed BAT, through three of its entities, currently owns 29.03% of the Indian cigarettes-to-hotels company, according to the data from BSE.

Last month, BAT said that it may look to monetise its stake in ITC to enhance balance sheet flexibility.

"We continue to pursue all opportunities to enhance balance sheet flexibility and, as part of this, we regularly review our stake in ITC," Tadeu Marroco, chief executive at BAT, said in a statement. "We recognise that we have a significant shareholding, which offers us the opportunity to release and reallocate some capital."

"We have been actively working for some time on completing the regulatory process required to give us the flexibility to monetise some of our shareholding and will update you at the earliest opportunity," he said.

Shares of ITC closed 0.96% lower at Rs 409.4 apiece, compared with a 0.83% decline in the benchmark BSE Sensex.