Infosys to buy back shares worth up to Rs 9,200 cr

IT services major Infosys on Wednesday said its board has approved a buyback of shares worth Rs 9,200 crore at a maximum price of Rs 1,750 per share as part of its capital allocation policy.

The buyback price is around 25% premium to the current market price of Rs 1,402 per share on NSE. The buyback plan of Rs 9,200 crore is less than 15% of its total paid-up share capital, it said.

Read | Infosys posts 17.5% fourth-quarter profit jump to Rs 5,076 crore

Current buyback of shares will be conducted through the open market, enabling the promoters of the company to participate in the share repurchase programme.

"Executing on our capital allocation policy, the company proposes to increase the total dividend per share by 54% over the previous year and buyback of equity shares of up to Rs 9,200 crore”, said Nilanjan Roy, CFO at Infosys.

This is the third such share repurchase programme of the company in the last five years. In 2017, it had conducted a Rs 13,000-crore buyback at Rs 1,150 apiece. Similarly, shares worth Rs 8,260 crore were repurchased from shareholders at Rs 800 apiece in 2019.

Apart from buyback, it also announced a final dividend of Rs 15 per share. With this dividend payout, the IT firm would give out total dividend worth Rs 11,500 crore for the last financial year.

Infosys also said its board has approved stock option worth Rs 13 crore for 2021-22 under its stock incentive plan, 2015, to its CEO & MD, Salil Parekh. Similarly, Rs 10 crore worth performance-based stock options will be granted to Parekh under the company's 2019 stock incentive plan.