The share price of IT major Infosys rose around 3 percent on Monday, in an otherwise weak market, after the firm announced that it will consider share buyback on April 14, the day it announces March quarter results.
NSE
The stock rose as much as 2.7 percent to its day's high of Rs 1,480 per share.
"The Board of the Company will consider a proposal for buyback of fully paid-up equity shares of the Company at its meeting to be held on April 14, 2021," the firm said in a BSE filing.
Brokerage house CLSA estimates that the potential buyback could range between $1.2 billion-$1.5 billion based on Infosys’ stated capital allocation policy. This translates to 1.1-1.5 percent of its equity assuming a buyback premium to the current market price in line with previous buybacks, said the brokerage.
"We are not certain on the mode (tender offer or open market purchase) though. Infosys has explored both in the previous two cases," it said.
While the first buyback in 2017 was as a tender offer and promoters participated in it, the second, in 2019, was through the open market route and promoters did not participate.
In the previous buyback in March 2019 (the second time), the IT major bought 2.36 percent of the paid-up capital (103.25 million shares) worth Rs 8,260 crore at Rs 800 per share. In December 2017, it bought 11.3 crore equity shares for Rs 13,000 crore at Rs 1,150 per share.
Last week, Infosys became the fourth Indian firm to hit Rs 6 trillion in market capitalisation following a surge of 140 percent in market value in the last one year.
For the March quarter, Reliance Securities expects sequential constant currency revenue growth at 3.2 percent and a strong order booking. It also sees QoQ decline in EBIT margin primarily due to wage inflation and higher hiring. It expects Infosys to guide for FY22E revenue growth of 12-14 percent and EBIT margin in the range of 24-25 percent.