New York: Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. approved a Rs160bn ($2.4bn) share repurchase to improve returns for stake holders. The stock gained after the announcement.
The board of Asia’s largest software services provider by market value voted to buy back as many as 56.1 million shares at Rs2,850 each at a meeting yesterday in Mumbai, the company said in a stock exchange filing. The company’s first stock buyback comes as cash and investments rose to Rs431.7bn at the end of December, up from Rs277.5bn a year earlier, according to a company presentation. The shares jumped as much as 6.1 percent, the biggest intraday surge in about two years, to Rs2,555 as of 3:30 p.m. in Mumbai.
Fund managers including Aberdeen Asset Management Plc had been asking Indian software developers to return more cash to shareholders.
Earlier this month Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. agreed to buy back about $3.4bn of shares, bowing to pressure from activist investor Elliott Management Corp.
