Infosys founders sell stake worth Rs6,484 crore

Infosys Ltd's founders have sold about 2.8 per cent of outstanding shares in the IT company, constituting 32.6 million shares, for about Rs6,484 crore.

Even after this sale, the founder group will continue to have a substantial shareholding in the company.

The sale has been made to partially monetise their stake, after more than three decades of nurturing the company, for various purposes including the betterment of society through philanthropic activities.

The founders Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, Dinesh K, some of their family members and wife of co-founder S D Shibulal have sold the shares in the company, said Deutsche Equities India Private Limited, the broker for the sales.

The shares were sold at an average price of Rs1,988.87 a share to institutional investors both FIIs and domestic.

Narayana Murthy and family sold 12.0 million shares or 23.3 per cent of their holding, while Nandan Nilekani and family sold12.0 million shares (31.3 per cent of their holding. Dinesh and family sold 6.2 million shares (21.5 per cent of their holding), while Kumari  Shibulal sold 2.4 million shares (9.6 per cent of their holding).

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.

In a statement, Narayana 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," Murthy added.

The founders have served Infosys in various capacities since its inception in 1981 till October 2014. The Bangalore-based company has a market cap of Rs 237,768 crore as on December 5, 2014.