TCS buyback offer: Tata Sons tenders shares worth Rs 10,000 crore

Tata Sons tendered shares worth Rs 9,997 crore of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) during the IT major’s Rs 16,000 crore-buyback offer that concluded recently.

The single largest shareholder of TCS, Tata Sons tendered more than 33.3 million shares during the offer, according to a regulatory filing.

TCS said over 53.3 million equity shares were bought back under the offer at a price of Rs 3,000 apiece and of the total, Tata Sons’ 3,33,25,118 shares were accepted under the buyback offer. The total amount utilised for the buyback offer — which opened on December 18, 2020 and closed on January 1, 2021 — was around Rs 16,000 crore, according to the filing.

The shares tendered by Tata Sons were worth Rs 9,997.5 crore.

Among others, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and RBC Emerging Markets Equity Fund tendered around 1.66 million shares and 769,000 shares of TCS, respectively. Late last year, TCS CEO and Managing Director Rajesh Gopinathan said the company is focused on its policy to return capital to shareholders.

The Mumbai-based company's cash reserves stood at Rs 58,500 crore as of September 2020.

In October 2019, TCS' board declared a special dividend of Rs 40 per equity share. In 2018, TCS had undertaken a share buyback of about Rs 16,000 crore, while it had conducted a similar share purchase exercise in 2017 also.