Mindtree board to meet on Mar 20 to ward off takeover bid by L & T

IT services major Mindtree's board will meet on March 20 to consider a share-buyback proposal amid reports of a hostile takeover bid by engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L & amp;T).

The announcement was made after market hours on Friday. "Pursuant to Company's Code for Prevention of Insider Trading, the trading window will be closed from March 18 to March 22 (both the days inclusive) for designated persons," it informed stock exchanges in regulatory filings.

The announcement of a possible share repurchase has come amid reports of L & amp;T's board giving the green signal to buy Cafe Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha's 20.41 per cent stake in Mindtree.

Meanwhile, Subroto Bagchi -- one of the co-founders of Mindtree -- resigned on Sunday as the head of Odisha Skill Development Authority and will return to Bengaluru, he said on his Twitter handle.

"An imminent threat of hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me resign from the Odisha government, so that I will be able to go and save the company," he said.

"I must protect the tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers and chainsaws, so that in its place they can build a shopping mall."

Terming Mindtree a national resource, Bagchi said it has not been designed as an asset to be bought and sold. "I need to be there in its time of difficulty. Hence, I have taken the hard decision to return," he said.

Bagchi, who co-founded Mindtree in 1999, returned to his native state Odisha in 2016 after stepping down from his role as the Executive Chairman. His return to Bengaluru is apparently a precursor to a bruising corporate boardroom battle that the current management is preparing for in order to restrict L & amp;T Infotech from coming on board.

According to reports, Mindtree had cash worth Rs 162 crore and investments worth Rs 811 crore as on December 2018, which can be used for the potential buyback.

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