Mindtree Board Decides Against Share Buyback, Forms Panel To Evaluate L&T Offer

The board of IT services firm Mindtree, which is facing a hostile takeover bid from L&T, decided not to proceed with the buyback of equity shares of the company. It decided to constitute a committee of independent directors to evaluate the unsolicited offer.

All independent directors of Mindtree board will be members of the panel, which has elected lead independent director Apurva Purohit as chairperson of the committee.

“After detailed deliberation and discussion, the Board in its meeting today, decided to immediately constitute the Committee of Independent Directors (IDC) in the interest of all stakeholders to provide their reasoned recommendation in respect of the unsolicited offer by L&T for the consideration of the shareholders,” Mindtree said in a statement.

The panel will “consider and evaluate all aspects of the unsolicited offer, taking into account all relevant facts, circumstances, data related to the company and industry and the interests of all stakeholders involved”, Mindtree said.

Meanwhile, L&T made an open offer today to acquire a 31% stake in IT services firm Mindtree for ₹5,030 crore.

L&T said it has offered to buy 51.3 million Mindtree shares at. 980 apiece.

Earlier, Mindtree had rejected conglomerate L&T’s hostile takeover bid, saying L&T’s plan to acquire a controlling stake will not create value for the IT services firm or its shareholders.

L&T, which agreed to buy Cafe Coffee Day founder V.G. Siddhartha’s 20.32% stake for Rs. 3269 crore on 18 March, had announced plans to buy a total of 67% in Mindtree for about Rs. 10,700 crore.

The L&T group runs IT firm L&T Infotech and engineering services firm L&T Technology Services.

L&T’s hostile bid to acquire a controlling stake in Mindtree is the first in India’s over $154 billion software services industry.Mindtree founders, including executive chairman Krishnakumar Natarajan, and CEO Rostow Ravanan own a combined 13.3% stake in the company.―Livemint