Infosys buyback at ₹18,000 crore

Infosys Ltd said it will spend ₹18,000 crore to repurchase shares from the market, marking the biggest buyback yet by India's second-largest IT services company.

- Jas Bardia

The company will buy back 100 million shares at ₹1,800 each, 19.2% above their Thursday closing of ₹1509.50. Earlier, Infosys spent ₹13,000 crore in its first buyback in 2017, followed by ₹8260 crore in 2019, ₹9200 crore in 2021 and ₹9300 crore in 2022.

The buyback continues a tradition of IT services companies returning excess back to shareholders. TCS and Wipro have both engaged in three buybacks each over the last five years. TCS has a stated policy of returning 80-100% of free cash flow to shareholders, whereas HCL Tech has a target of returning a minimum of 75% of net income to shareholders.

With this, Infosys also matches the biggest buyback by an IT firm, announced by Tata Consultancy Services in 2022, when it sought to repurchase ₹18,000 crore worth of shares. While TCS then sought to buy back 1.08% of its shares, Infosys is now repurchasing up to 2.41%.