Infosys top Sensex loser, down 4.88% after founders sell stake - Livemint

The sale of shares was for an average price of Rs1,988.87 apiece to foreign and domestic institutional investors, the company said, identifying the sellers as Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, K. Dinesh and the wife of co-founder S.D. Shibulal. Photo: Bloomberg

Bangalore: Families of four co-founders of Infosys Ltd have sold about 32.6 million shares, or 2.8% of the shares outstanding of the company, for about Rs.6,484 crore, according to a report by Deutsche Equities India Pvt. Ltd.

Infosys shares fell 4.88% to Rs.1,968.60 apiece on BSE on Monday, while the benchmark Sensex shed 1.19% to 28,119.40 points.

The shares were sold to partially monetize their stakes for personal reasons, including betterment of society through various philanthropic activities, according to the report.

An Infosys spokesperson declined to comment. Deutsche Bank was the sole book-runner for the deal.

“I would really see what happens under Mr Sikka’s leadership before commenting on Infy’s performance now. In the short term you can’t deny the fact that it will read as negative. So probably in the short term you might see share prices coming down further, but in the long term I wouldn’t read anything negative out of it,” said Ankita Somani, an equity analyst with MSFL, part of the Marwadi Institutional Group.

“It’s the first time the promoters are doing it in concert. And I think investors are worried about whether this would be the first of several transactions. In the long-term, it shouldn’t affect Infosys because these guys are anyway out of the company. It’s just that when you suddenly see three or four of the executives selling their stake at one point in time, and this happened just after they stepped down, so there’s just a little bit of concern whether this is going to happen over the near-term as well,” said another analyst on condition of anonymity.

Narayana Murthy said his family has sold a minor part of the stake it owns in Infosys to encourage entrepreneurship and for personal philanthropic efforts.

“These are activities that I expect to be busy with during the next phase of my life. Even after this sale our family continues to be the largest shareholder among retail shareholders. We have tremendous confidence in the future of Infosys and its leaders,” Murthy said.

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