Infosys to consider share buyback, special dividend on Jan 11 board meet

Country's second largest IT services company, Infosys will consider buyback of its shares apart from proposals of giving special dividend to shareholders as part of its capital allocation policy in its upcoming board meet on January 11.

"The board of the company will consider proposals including buyback of shares, payment of special dividend, for implementation of the capital allocation policy at its meeting to be held on January 11, 2019," the Bengaluru-headquartered company said in a filing on exchanges on Tuesday.

According to the capital allocation policy approved by the shareholders in April last year, Infosys plans to give back around Rs 10,400 crore to shareholders by the end of this financial year. Under the current framework, it also plans to return up to 70 per cent of its free cash flow to shareholders.

For the first time in its history, Infosys had conducted a share repurchase of Rs 13,000 crore in 2018. Market participants expect a similar buy back of shares this year as well on the back of its current capital allocation policy framework.

Last year, Infosys's peers, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and HCL Technologies had conducted such share repurchase for a second consecutive year.  While TCS bought back Rs 16,000 crore at Rs 2,100 a share last year, HCL Technologies had conducted a repurchase of Rs 4,000 crore during this period. Apart from TCS and HCLT, Wipro is another IT services firm which had repurchased its shares worth Rs 11,000 crore in FY18.

Analysts are of the opinion that Indian IT services players are increasingly emulating the capital allocation models of global technology majors such as Accenture and IBM in conducting regular share repurchase programme. IBM in October, 2018 had announced that it would buy back its shares worth $4 billion as part of its regular repurchase plan, while Accenture got its board approval to do an additional share buyback of $5 billion in September last year.