MUMBAI: Top officials of one of India’s top engineering firms, Larsen & Toubro or L&T, sold a portion of their shareholdings in the company last week ahead of the firm’s disqualification from a tender floated by state-owned NTPC for supplying power equipment.

According to the company’s disclosures to the National Stock Exchange or NSE, L&T’s chairman & managing director AM Naik, whole-time directors KV Rangaswami and YM Deosthalee and company secretary N Hariharan trimmed their stakes between June 14 and June 18.

Mr Naik sold 1,50,000 shares of L&T in four tranches in the period, pruning his holdings in the firm to 0.3% (18.50 lakh shares) of the total share capital. Mr Deosthalee, who sold 10,000 shares last week, now holds about 11.42 lakh shares, or 0.189%, of the total share capital. Mr Rangaswamy sold 5,000 L&T shares, reducing his holding to 0.028% representing 1.7 lakh shares. Mr Hariharan sold 1000 shares and now holds 24,277 shares in the company, according to the company’s announcements to NSE.

A company spokesperson declined to comment on the issue. An email query on this also went unanswered. Talk of L&T’s bid for the Rs 20,000-crore tender being rejected was doing the rounds in the market from June 21 (Monday), triggering ‘trading sell’ ratings by broking firms that evening. The stock fell close to 4% over the next two days to June 23 (Wednesday), as investors felt the disqualification would make it tough for L&T to meet its order intake guidance for 2010-11.