Infosys Ltd’s share price down, co-founders and their families sell a 2.8% stake at the amount of $1.05 billion

Some of the founders of the second-largest software services company in India, Infosys Ltd, were reported by the manager of the share sale – Deutsche Equities India Pvt – to have sold a 2.8% stake in the company at the amount of $1.05 billion.

The managing director of K.R. Choksey Shares & Securities Pvt, Deven Choksey, commented on the sale for Bloomberg: “Infosys founders are partly offloading their holdings to give the company a more professional look. To a larger extent they have achieved it.”

A total of 30.2 million shares estimated to about INR 65 billion ($1.05 billion were sold by the co-founders of the company N.R. Narayana Murthy, K. Dinesh and Nandan M. Nilekani and their families. The average price, at which the shares were sold, was 1 988.87 rupees.

As reported by Bloomberg, the companys founders explained: “The sale has been done to partially monetize their stake, after more than three decades of nurturing the company.” Thay also said that the stakes sale is also “for personal reasons including for the betterment of society through various philanthropic activities”.

The co-founders and their families offered about 33 million shares for sale. The stake sold represents about 3% of Infosys market value, which is currently estimated to INR 2.38 trillion.

Over the past twenty years, Infosys has been the best-performing stock on S&P BSE Sensex. The company was reported to have increased its value 64 times over the past two decades in comparison with a nine-fold gain in the index.

Infosys Ltd lost 4.72% to trade at INR 1 972.65 per share as of 10:11 GMT, marking a one-year increase of 18.58%. The company is valued at INR 2.38 trillion. According to the Financial Times, the 55 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Infosys Ltd have a median target of INR 2 175, with a high estimate of INR 2 680 and a low estimate of INR 1 475. The median estimate represents a +5.41% increase from the last price of INR 2 063.4.