Infosys Gets Nod To Hike Fii Limit

Shareholders of Infosys Technologies Ltd on Saturday approved a resolution to raise the holding of foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to 40 per cent of its paid-up equity at the 19th annual general meeting of the company. They also approved a proposal to increase the number of directors from 12 to 18.

Three new faces will come on board, from within the company. They are, Mohandas Pai, senior vice-president, finance and administration, Phaneesh Murthy, senior vice-president, sales and marketing, and Srinath Batni, senior vice-president, delivery, West North America.

The appointment of Philip Yeo, executive chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board as director on the board of the company was approved, while long-time director, S M Datta, decided not to seek re-election to the board, though he was 64 and was technically eligible to be on the board for one more year.

 

Earlier, addressing the shareholders, N R Narayana Murthy, chairman and chief executive officer, said that the company was looking at alternative means to fuel further growth. Infosys, he said, was looking at acquisitions, strategic investments, and incubating business ventures of budding entrepreneurs within the organization.

Giving details, he said that a strategic investment worth $3 million was made in a Massachusetts-based company called EC Cubed Inc, while the first incubator scheme was for Onscan, a web-based wireless notification service.

Speaking on acquisitions, Murthy said that Infosys was still on the look-out for suitable companies to take over, but would do so only if it brought strategic benefits to the company in revenues and net income, adding that tremendous management attention would be needed to unlock value in the acquired company.

Nandan Nilekani, managing director, Infosys, said the company would offer e-commerce services to dotcoms, and in keeping with the way the business practices were changing, would concentrate on e-commerce which, according to statistics, was expected to grow to about $7.3 trillion by 2004.

Infosys revenues from e-commerce activities has increased from 1.3 per cent in the first quarter of fiscal 1999 to 18.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2000.