Mumbai, Dec. 29: Citigroup Global Markets has raised its stake in L&T Finance Holdings to 7.56 per cent from 5.74 per cent for about Rs 208 crore.

These shares were acquired by foreign investors from the secondary market. Citigroup purchased 3.18 crore shares, or 1.82 per cent, of L&T Finance Holdings.

Based on the closing price of L&T Finance Holdings' scrip last Friday, the transaction value stands at about Rs 208.60 crore. On the BSE, the company's shares closed at Rs 65.80 apiece, up 0.30 per cent.

Earlier this year, L&T Finance Holdings sold a 5.27 per cent stake to private equity company Bain Capital through an issue of preferential shares and warrants for about Rs 708 crore.

Also, parent Larsen & Toubro sold 4.95 per cent of its stake in the NBFC to the PE fund through a block deal, raising around Rs 602 crore.

L&T then reportedly sold over 8.5 crore shares at an average price of Rs 70 a share, while L&T Finance sold over 9.5 crore shares.

Bain Capital is a Boston, US-based PE fund, which had in March announced that it would invest $3 billion in Indian assets. As of March 2015, its exposure in local companies stood at $1.3 billion.

For the period ended September, L&T Finance Holdings saw its loans and advances grow nearly 19 per cent to Rs 50,986 crore from Rs 42,762 crore a year ago.

This was led by its focus areas on B2C (business to consumer) products - two wheelers, housing and microfinance in the retail business and operational projects in the wholesale business, which saw a disbursement growth of 18 per cent over last year.

The average assets under management of the investment management business grew 17 per cent to Rs 24,280 crore during the period.