When contacted, Mr Shailesh Kanani, analyst with Angel Broking said that the drop in FII holding in these companies reflected the uncertainty in the market. "Across the board, in large and mid cap companies, the FII holding is down and the situation is gloomy.

Things may change once the macro economic situation improves," Mr Kanani pointed out.

The stake of promoter and promoter group in the three companies remained virtually unchanged compared to the year-ago period.

Holding categories

When it comes to `public shareholding' in Unitech, the stake held by various mutual funds and UTI stood at 0.51 per cent on June 30, 2008 -- a tad higher than 0.25 per cent in the year-ago period. According to market sources, while FIIs have trimmed their holding in Unitech, the shares sold by them may have been picked up by private Indian insurance firms.

The non-institutions' category saw there was a marginal change with the stake of bodies corporate in Unitech rising to 9.11 per cent from 8.44 per cent in June 2007, while that of `individuals' fell to 8.5 per cent against 8.98 per cent in the same period last year.

For DLF, which got listed in mid-2007, the FII holding within (non-promoter shareholding) rose to 6.55 per cent from 5.92 per cent a year ago. The total `individual' shareholding dipped by 0.88 per cent year-on-year.