L&T makes Rs 5,030-crore open offer for additional 31% stake in Mindtree

Engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Friday announced an open offer to purchase 51.3 million shares or an additional 31 per cent stake in Mindtree at Rs 980 apiece. At the current offer price, L&T has to shell out around Rs 5,029.8 crore to buy the stake. 

In an exchange filing, the company said the open offer will start on June 17 and will end on June 28. “L&T makes a cash offer of Rs 980 per fully paid up equity share of the face value of Rs 10 each, to acquire up to 51.3 million equity shares representing 31 per cent of the voting share capital...to the shareholders of Mindtree,” said the letter of offer. Axis Capital and Citi will act managers to the open offer.  

L&T had to face delay in launching the open offer, pending approval from market regulator Sebi, which it received late last week. After the announcement of the offer, the committee of independent directors (IDC) set up by Mindtree is likely to come up with its reasoned recommendations on the offer to shareholders.

The board of the Bengaluru-headquartered IT services firm had, on March 26, formed the IDC as part of a regulatory requirement to provide its reasoned recommendation on the offer. The committee is headed by Apurva Purohit with Milind Sarwate, Akshaya Bhargava, and Bijou Kurien being the other three members of the panel.  

Sources in the know said the panel of independent directors was likely to come up with the recommendations next week. L&T can revise the open offer price until the last working day before the tendering process begins.

After concluding the purchase of 20 per cent stake from Coffee Day Founder V G Siddhartha, L&T has already purchased an additional 8.90 per cent stake in Mindtree through open market transaction. It plans to acquire 15 per cent stake through the open market purchase route. L&T is pursuing a controlling stake of 66 per cent in the mid-tier IT firm for around Rs 10,700 crore. However, the unsolicited takeover attempt is being opposed by Mindtree’s founders, who seek more clarity on L&T’s plan.