Rishad Premji sells over 27 per cent of his stake in Wipro

Rishad Premji, chief strategy officer of Wipro and son of chairman Azim Premji, has sold 27.4 per cent of his total holding in the company for a little over Rs11 crore.

Rishad has sold 2,60,000 of his 9,46,666 shares (0.04 per cent stake) held in Wipro, which brings down his existing stake in the company to 6,86,666 shares (or 0.03 per cent).

In a notice to the stock exchanges, Rishad said he had sold 2,44,982 shares on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) for Rs10.39 crore and 15,018 shares on the BSE for Rs63.57 lakh, on 15 June. The transaction was done through Kotak Securities.

Rishad, who joined Wipro Technologies as business head for special projects in the banking and financial services vertical (BFSI), in 2007, was elevated to the post of CSO in September last.

Wipro said the sale is purely a personal matter concerning Rishad and the company has no comments on it. Wipro, however, was down 1.64 per cent at Rs409 a share on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

Chairman Azim Premji holds close to 80-per cent stake in the company.

Meanwhile, the administrative committee of board of directors of Wipro on Friday announced plans to issue and allot 20,933 equity shares of Rs2 face value each to eligible employees under the employee stock option under restricted stock unit Plan 2004 and restricted stock unit plan 2005.

The board committee has already deposited 20,312 equity shares of par value of Rs2 each to JP Morgan Chase Bank, the company's depository as underlying shares in respect of ADRs to be issued and allocated to the purchasers, pursuant to the exercise of the stock options granted to the employees under the company's ADS restricted stock unit plan- 2004.