The country’s second largest IT services firm will now have a four-year old as one of its promoters.
The surprising development arose after Janhavi Nilekani, daughter of Infosys chairman and co-founder Nandan Nilekani, transferred 7,77,600 shares to her son, Tanush Nilekani Chandra.

The Infosys stock on Wednesday closed at Rs 1,368.10 on the BSE and based on this price, these shares are valued at Rs 106.38 crore.

According to the shareholding data of Infosys for the quarter ended December 31, 2020, Janhavi Nilekani held 1.2 crore shares of the IT services giant which translate to a holding of 0.30 per cent. The total promoter holding stands at 12.95 per cent.

In a regulatory filing to the stock exchanges on Tuesday, Infosys said that Janhavi made an “off market” sale of 7.77 lakh shares, or 0.01 per cent, to Tanush. After the transaction, her stake stands at around 1.1 crore shares, or 0.27 per cent of Infosys’s equity.

This is not the first time that a grandchild of a promoter is holding some shares of the prized IT services firm. For instance, co-promoter S.D. Shibulal’s grandson Milan Shibulal Manchanda at present holds 1.3 crore shares of Infosys.

While Tanush Nilekani Chandra may be one of the youngest promoter in the country, experts say there is nothing wrong in such a transfer to even a four-year old child.

Shriram Subramanian, founder and managing director of proxy advisory firm InGovern Research, told The Telegraph that these are inter-se transfers and there are no issues in such transfers or gifts and there is no age floor for a person to be classified as a promoter.

Pointing out that even Sebi rules allow such inter-se transfer of shares, Subramanian said promoters of a
listed company do not have a fiduciary responsibility which rests with its board of directors.
It may be recalled that the founders of Infosys had in 2014 sought the approval of Sebi to reclassify themselves as public shareholders. However, the market regulator said they would be allowed to shake off the promoter tag only if the collective shareholding of the founders and their family members was brought down below 5 per cent.

According to Section 2 (69) of the Companies Act, a promoter means a person who has been named as such in a prospectus or is identified by the company in the annual returns referred to in Section 92; or who has control over the affairs of the company, directly or indirectly whether as a shareholder, director or otherwise; or in accordance with whose advice, directions or instructions the board of directors of the company is accustomed to act.