Bengaluru, (Samajweekly) Global software major Infosys on Wednesday said it would buy back shares amounting to Rs 9,200 crore ($1.23 billion) from the open market route.
“As part of capital allocation, the board of directors approved buyback of shares equity shares from the open market route through the stock exchanges amounting to Rs 9,200 crore, excluding tax,” said the city-based IT major in a statement here.
The buyback will be subject to the approval of the company’s shareholders in the annual general meeting (AGM) of the company in June.
The last time (the second) when the IT major bought back shares was in March 2019, buying 2.36 per cent of the paid-up capital (103.25 million shares) worth Rs 8,260 crore at Rs 800 per share.
It made a maiden buyback of 11.3 crore equity shares in December 2017 for Rs 13,000 crore at Rs 1,150 per share.
The board, which met here to approve the company’s financial results for fiscal 2020-21, also recommended a final dividend of Rs 15 per share of Rs 5 face value under its capital allocation policy.
“With Rs 12 per share interim dividend paid in October 2020, the total dividend for the fiscal will be Rs 27 per share, which is a 54 per cent increase over the dividend for the previous fiscal (2019-20),” said the statement.
The outsourcing firm reported Rs 5,076-crore consolidated net profit for the fourth quarter (January-March) of the fiscal under review, registering 17.5 per cent annual growth from Rs 4,321 crore in the same period a year ago.
Sequentially, net profit for the quarter (Q4), however, declined 2.3 per cent from Rs 5,197 crore in the third quarter (October-December) of the fiscal.
Consolidated revenue for the quarter under review (Q4) increased 13.1 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 26,311 crore from Rs 23,267 crore in like period a year ago and rose 1.5 per cent sequentially from Rs 25,927 crore a quarter ago.
For the entire fiscal (2020-21), the IT behemoth posted Rs 1,00,472 crore consolidated revenue, registering 10.7 per cent YoY growth from Rs 90,791 crore a year ago in fiscal 2019-20.
This is the first time the company’s annual revenue crossed Rs 1-lakh crore.
Net profit grew 16.6 per cent YoY to Rs 19,351 crore for the fiscal under review from Rs 16,594 crore a year ago (2019-20).
The company’s blue-chip scrip of Rs 5 face value closed at Rs 1,398.60 per share at the end of trading on BSE against opening price of Rs 1,433.80 per share and Tuesday’s closing price of Rs 1,425.80 per share.
