Wipro promoters to sell shares through offer for sale route

India's third biggest IT services firm Wipro today said its promoters will soon sell shares in the company through the offer for sale (OFS) route.

"The company is now in receipt of letter from SEBI dated April 15, 2013 acceding to company's request and permitting the promoter and promoter group to divest through the OFS route during the twelve weeks cool off period," Wipro said in the filing.

The IT major, however, did not disclose the quantity or the probable date of auctioning the shares.

Seeking relaxation of the norms, Wipro had on March 25 sought SEBI's nod for carrying out the offer within the mandatory twelve-week cooling off period following the latest inter-se transfer carried out on March 15 amongst the promoter and promoter group entities.

The scrip of the company today settled at Rs 380.05 apiece, down 0.85% in the BSE over the previous closing.

On March 9, Wipro's promoter group entities, Prazim Traders and Zash Traders had acquired 7.43 crore shares of the company from Hasham Traders, also a promoter group firm via "inter-se transfer" of equity.

As on December, 2012, Wipro promoters had 78.29% stake in the firm, which has also presence in fast-moving consumer durables among others.

Private listed companies like Wipro will have to increase public shareholding to a minimum of 25% by June 2013.

An auction of Wipro shares by Azim Premji Trust on March 2012 had garnered Rs 750 crore for the promoter group entity through OFS route. Azim Premji Trust had sold 1.78 crore shares even though the auction was for offloading 3.5 crore shares of the IT major.

In April 2013, Wipro, led by billionaire Azim Premji, said the demerger of three non-IT business divisions, including consumer products segment, into a privately-held company Wipro Enterprises is effective from March 31.