The Big Picture - L&T v/s Mindtree: First Hostile Takeover
A day after Larsen & Toubro announced its plans to acquire up to 66 per cent stake in Mindtree, the promoters of the Bengaluru-based IT company on Tuesday vowed to oppose the hostile takeover bid. Calling it a “grave threat” to the company, they said the acquisition lacked “any strategic advantage”. L&T reached an agreement with V G Siddhartha, the owner of Coffee Day Trading and Coffee Day Enterprises, to acquire a 20.32 per cent stake in Mindtree at Rs 980 per share, aggregating to around Rs 3,300 crore. It has also placed an order to acquire an additional 15 per cent stake from the open market. And, apart from this, it wants to purchase 31 per cent stake of the outstanding shares through an open offer. With 66.32 per cent stake in Mindtree, L&T would become the majority shareholder. The board members of Mindtree, meanwhile, are expected to meet on Wednesday, to consider the proposal of a buyback of shares of the company. On this edition of the big picture we analyse the first ever hostile takeover in the Indian IT sector.
Guests:
Srijan Pal Singh, IT Expert
Subhomoy Bhattacharjee, Consulting Editor, The Business Standard
Manu Seth, Former Head of Marketing, South Asia, HTC
Jiten Jain, Director Voyager Infosec
