MUMBAI: First, it was the Bajoria murmur that set the market grapevine abuzz. Now, it is the offloading of shares by Balaji promoters to foreign institutional investors (FIIs) that's got the market bustling.

Promoters of one of the biggest success stories in television - Balaji Telefilms - Jeetendra Kapoor and Tusshar Kapoor have offloaded 2.5 million shares constituting 4.85 per cent of the total equity share capital in the production house to FIIs on 7 January 2004.

Balaji Telefilms has informed the National Stock Exchange that while Jeetendra Kapoor sold 500,000 shares (0.97 per cent of total equity, Tusshar Kapoor has sold 2 million shares (3.88 per cent of total equity).

The Kapoor family's consolidated stake in Balaji now stands at 52.95 per cent vis-?-vis the 57.8 per cent holding before the stake sale. This move pushes up the FII holding in the company from 13.22 per cent to 18.07 per cent.

When contacted by indiantelevision.com, a well-placed source in the production house admitted that the stake had been offloaded to some of the four major FIIs who already have holdings in the company. The production company had been witnessing a keen FII interest and hence, the promoters Jeetendra Kapoor and Tusshar Kapoor decided to dilute their stake in the company to further widen the institutional investor base, he added.

The Balaji Telefilms scrip closed today's session at Rs 108.20 with a gain of 1.79 per cent on the BSE after peaking at its intra day high of Rs 109.70 earlier in the day. Over 0.3 million shares to the tune of Rs 32.6 million have been traded on the counter on the BSE.

Balaji Telefilms has today informed the NSE that the Company has received periodical disclosures for the quarter from 1 October 2003 to 31 December 2003 from the following persons. The details of shares held by them as on 31 December 2003 are as follows:

(1) Mr. Jeetendra Kapoor, Director holds 60,67,500 shares amounting to 11.78%. 
(2) Mrs. Shobha Kapoor, Director holds 99,35,000 shares amounting to 19.29%. 
(3) Ms. Ekta Kapoor, Director holds 97,27,000 shares amounting to 18.88%. 
(4) Mr. Akshay Chudasama, Director holds NIL shares. 
(5) Mr. Dhruv Kaji, Director holds NIL shares. 
(6) Mr. Raj Bothra, Director holds NIL shares. 
(7) Mr. Tusshar Kapoor, Share Holder holds 40,30,250 shares amounting to 7.82%. 
(8) Mr. Ajay Patadia, Designated Employee holds 10 shares. 
(9) Mr. V. Devarajan, Designated Employee holds NIL Shares. 
(10) Mr. Rajesh Pavithran, Designated Employee holds NIL shares. 
(11) Mr. R. Karthikeyan, Designated Employee holds NIL Shares. 
(12) Mr. Sandeep Jain, Designated Employee, along with relatives holds 50 Shares. 
(13) Mr. Ketan Gupta, Designated Employee holds NIL Shares. 
(14) Mr. Hamavand Taraporwala, Designated Employee holds NIL Shares. 
(15) Mr. Apurava Zaveri, Designated Employee holds NIL Shares. 
(16) Mr. Dominic D'souza, Designated Employee holds NIL Shares. 
(17) Mr. Deepoo Vaswani, Designated Employee holds NIL Shares. 
(18) Ms. Nirmala Sood, Designated Employee holds 5,000 Shares amounting to 0.0097%.