Mindtree Co-Founder Subroto Bagchi Returns To ‘Save The Company’

Subroto Bagchi, one of the founding members of Mindtree Ltd., resigned as the head of Odisha's Skill Development Authority to return to the information technology company in Bengaluru.

He announced the resignation on late Sunday night on Twitter, saying that he must protect the company from the people trying to destroy it.

“Mindtree has not been designed as an asset to be bought and sold,” he wrote in another tweet. “It is a national resource. It has a unique culture that humanizes the idea of business. It sets the standards of corporate governance. I need to be there in its time of difficulty. Hence the hard decision to return.”

This comes as Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd. has reportedly emerged as the leading bidder for a major stake in Mindtree. The infrastructure company is going to pay Rs. 981 per share to buy the entire stake held by Mindtree’s largest shareholder, Mint newspaper reported.

VG Siddhartha, the largest shareholder in Mindtree and founder of the Coffee Day Group, is selling a stake of about 20.4 percent that he holds through Coffee Day Enterprises and affiliated entities.

L&T Infotech will buy the 20.4 percent stake and will announce an open offer to buy up to 51 percent in Mindtree on Monday evening, Mint reported quoting a person directly aware of the development.

Mindtree promoters, N Krishnakumar, Subroto Bagchi, NS Parthasarathy, Rostow Ravanan, own close to 13 percent.

The Indian tech company is now going to consider a buyback at its March 20 meeting, according to an exchange filing. Mindtree had cash worth Rs 162 crore, as of December 2018, according to its filings. It also had investments worth Rs 811 crore which can be used for the potential buyback.

L&T and Siddhartha haven’t responded to BloombergQuint's queries sent earlier.

Shares of Mindtree have risen about 9.6 percent so far this year, compared to the 7.6 percent gain in the NSE Nifty IT index.