With RBI superseding the board of Reliance Capital and the ousted Chairman and promoter Anil Ambani reducing his stake in the debt-laden company from over 52 percent in December 2018 to less than 2 percent by March 2020, public shareholders holding more than 97 percent are ought to take the biggest hit.

According to the data from BSE, that the promoter group, led by Ambani and his family, owns just 1.51 percent stake in Reliance Capital as of September 30, 2021, while public shareholders hold a 97.85 percent stake in the company. Retail shareholders having a share capital of up to ₹2 lakh hold around 57.53 percent stake in the company. According to JN Gupta, Managing Director, Stakeholder Empowerment Services, past failures like Yes Bank and Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd indicate that rarely does a company with a high promoter stake fails. Promoters that have skin in the game in most cases tend to stay committed to the company. The first red flag is when the promoter stake begins to come down. When a ship is about to sink, promoters are first to leave. This should be a trigger for RBI to sit up and take action, rather than wait till the company has completely failed. LIC has a stake of 2.98 percent and is the single largest shareholder of Reliance Capital. Ramkrishna Reddy Chinta is another large shareholder having a 2.16 percent stake in Reliance Capital while his firm R K R Investments Services Private Limited holds another 1.43 percent shares. According to the data from BSE, the promoter group held over 53 percent stake in Reliance Capital as of June 30, 2008, and it continued to remain as high as 52.24 percent as of December 31, 2018, following which it was gradually reduced. It was diluted from 47.48 percent as of March 31, 2019, to just 1.51 percent by March 31, 2020, and has remained constant at that level. Gupta told that RBI must re-look at ownership norms and rather than having just a maximum cap for promoter holding, it should also prescribe a minimum threshold. With Reliance Capital facing liquidity problems and defaulting on repayments, institutional investors have also gradually pared down their stake and experts point out that apart from LIC, there are hardly any institutions and banks holding on to shares of the company.

Foreign portfolio investors, which held about 22.74 percent stake in Reliance Capital as of June 30, 2019, owned just 0.43 percent shares by September 30, 2021, this year. LIC too has lowered its holding in the company from 3.82 percent of shares that it held in the June 2019 quarter. Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) Ltd had in June this year announced that it had sold 95 lakh shares comprising a 3.76 percent stake in Reliance Capital in the open market. Before the stake sale, HDFC held a 6.43 percent stake in Reliance Capital, which had then dropped to 2.67 percent. It had acquired the stake in April 2020 by invoking pledged share.