Infosys founders sell shares worth Rs 6,484 cr

Infosys co-founders N R Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani along with their family members today sold shares worth Rs 6,484 crore in the country's second largest software services firm.

"Some of the founders of Infosys, including Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and Dinesh K and some of their family members as well as wife of co-founder S D Shibulal have announced that they have sold 32.6 million shares of Infosys for approximately Rs 6,484 crore," a statement issued by Deutsche Equities India said.

The sale was executed by Deutsche Equities India at an average price of Rs 1,988.87.

This constitutes about 2.8 per cent of shares outstanding, it added.

The sale has been done to partially monetise their stake, after more than three decades of setting up the company. Some portion of the proceeds will also be used by the founders towards philanthropic activities.

Murthy and family sold 12 million shares (23.3 per cent of their holding), Nilekani and family 12 million shares (31.3 per cent of their holding), Dinesh and family 6.2 million shares (21.5 per cent of their holding) and Kumari Shibulal 2.4 million shares (9.6 per cent of their holding).

Reacting to the news, shares of the IT major tumbled 4.76 per cent to Rs 1,971 at the BSE, becoming the top loser among the 30-Sensex constituents.

Post the sale, the founder group will continue to have a substantial shareholding in the company. Infosys had a market cap of Rs 237,768 crore as on December 5, 2014.

The shares were sold to institutional investors both FIIs and domestic, the statement said.

Infosys shares have been up 21.4 per cent since the beginning of the year and up 8.9 per cent in the last two months.

The last of the founders stepped down from the board in October this year with former SAP Board member Vishal Sikka taking over as the CEO.

In a statement on his recent sale of stake in Infosys, Murthy said: "Our family has sold a minor part of our stake to continue various activities including our efforts to encourage entrepreneurship and our 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," the statement said.