The board of Piramal Enterprises Ltd (PEL) on Friday approved a share buyback programme worth Rs 1,750 crore.

In a regulatory filing, the firm said it will repurchase up to 1.4 crore shares representing 5.87 per cent of the pre-buyback fully paid-up shares at a price of Rs 1,250 per share through the tender offer route. This is the first-ever share buyback by the company.

Piramal Enterprises added that the promoter and promoter group shall not participate in the buyback. The promoters hold around 43.48 per cent of the equity.

The price of Rs 1,250 per share represents a premium of 16.51 per cent to the closing price of the PEL scrip on the BSE on Friday.

Piramal Enterprises also announced results for the quarter ended June 30.

The diversified firm saw a 94 per cent drop in consolidated net profits for the quarter ended June 30.

This was because of an exceptional gain of Rs 7,614 crore pertaining to the demerger of the pharmaceutical business last year.

Net profit fell to Rs 509 crore from Rs 8,155 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal. The quarter saw its interest income falling 15 per cent to Rs 1,725 crore from Rs 2,039 crore in the year-ago period.

“Our first quarter performance is in line with our endeavour towards building a large diversified non-banking financial company. In the mid to long term, we aim to have retail lending account for two-thirds of our assets, reflecting our strategic focus,’’ Ajay Piramal, chairman,Piramal Enterprises, said while commenting on the company’s performance during the quarter.