Four days after the rumours of Wipro promoters selling stake surfaced, it's now Infosys that is in the news for a similar report of 'stake sale by founders'. In both cases, the denial has been prompt, though investors have taken a hit.
Infosys plunged 3.45 percent to hit an intraday low of Rs 923 before recovering to trade at Rs 940 while Wipro is in the red at Rs 536 (down 1.58 percent). TCS, India's largest IT services exporter, was also down marginally to Rs 2,515, at around 12.30 pm. The BSE sensex was trading 80 points down to 31,133.
Read: How Rs 950 invested in Infosys in 1993 IPO is now worth over Rs 50 lakh
Infosys came out with an official statement denying media reports of stake sale by founders, comprising N R Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, S D Shibulal, Kris Gopalakrishnan, N S Raghavan, K Dinesh and Ashok Arora.
"This speculation has already been categorically denied by the promoters. The company further reiterates that it has no information on any such development. We would like to appeal to the media not to fuel such speculative stories as they are likely to harm the interests of the company and all its stakeholders," Infosys said in response to stake sale rumours by founders.
Promoters hold 12.75 percent while public shareholding is 86.76 percent, with the rest being held by Infosys Employees' Trust (0.49 percent).
Within public shareholding, mutual funds hold 8.33 percent, foreign portfolio investors 38 percent, with retail investors and overseas depositories holding the rest.
Promoter shareholding includes stocks held by founders and their family members while public holding includes institutional investors as listed below (as of March 31, 2017):
HDFC Mutual Fund (1.67 percent)
ICICI Prudential Value Discovery Fund (1.45 percent)
SBI ETF (1.14 percent)
LIC (7.03 percent)
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance (1.34 percent)
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (1.38 percent)
Singapore government (2.29 percent)
Foreign insurance companies (11.80 percent)
