Mumbai: Tata Sons Ltd has picked up an additional 64-lakh equity shares of its group company Tata Chemicals Ltd, through market purchases. The purchases, representing 2.97 per cent equity base of the company, raises Tata Sons'' stake in the company to 15.28 per cent.

Tata Sons had also acquired a one per cent stake in Tata Chemicals, offloaded by Hindustan Lever Ltd earlier this year and another two per cent HLL stake for over Rs 94 crore last month.

This is in line with the group''s decision to raise stake in all flagship companies. The acquisition was made during the period August 30 to September 12.

Tata Sons had recently increased its stake in Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd by two percentage points to 7.64 per cent through open market purchases, taking the promoter group''s total equity stake in VSNL to about 49 per cent.

The group had also increased its stake in Tata Steel through the preferential route as a safeguard against hostile takeover bids.