L&T’s stake in Mindtree crosses 60% as open offer is fully subscribed

According to data available with exchanges, against an offer of 51.3 million shares, L&T has so far received bids for 55.4 million shares

L&T’s ongoing open offer for buying shares in Mindtree was subscribed by 1.08 times by the end of trading hours on Thursday, taking its stake in the IT firm to over 60 per cent.

Though there is still one day for the open offer process to be over, the engineering firm is now in the driver’s seat to change the management structure of the company.

According to data available with exchanges, against an offer of 51.3 million shares, L&T has so far received bids for 55.4 million shares, which is 1.08 times the quantity on offer.

With such bidding, L&T’s stake in the company has now crossed 60 per cent — on Thursday, the company bought 31 per cent stake in Mindtree through the open offer, while it had earlier acquired 20 per cent stake from Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha and around 9 per cent through the open market purchase.

“With the controlling stake, L&T can call for a board meeting. But with only two weeks left for the annual general meeting, it seems unnecessary,” said Shriram Subramanian, founder of corporate governance advisory firm InGovern.

He also said that even if Mindtree directors resigned from the board, the company would operate with L&T nominees.

Last week, Mindtree board has approved of the appointment of three L&T’s nominees, including the Mumbai-based firm’s CEO & MD, SN Subrahmanyan, and its CFO Ramamurthi Shankar Raman.

In that reshuffle, Mindtree’s co-founder Subroto Bagchi had opted out of a re-appointment. Sources said that even if Mindtree’s CEO and MD, Rostow Ravanan resigns from the post, he has to continue for the interim period due to the contractual obligations.

After falling close to 4 per cent in the last one week, Mindtree shares gained 1.8 per cent to close Thursday’s trade at Rs 952 in the NSE.