The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has approved the initial public offering (IPO) of Tata Technologies which will be the first public float from the Tata group in nearly two decades.

Tata Technologies, which is an arm of Tata Motors, has filed the draft papers with the market regulator in March this year.

The IPO, according to the draft papers, is purely an offer for sale (OFS), wherein its selling shareholders will sell up to 9.57 crore equity shares representing approximately 23.60 per cent of its paid-up share capital.

Under OFS, Tata Technologies’ parent company Tata Motors will offload 8.11 crore shares or a 20 per cent stake in the company.

Among other shareholders, Alpha TC Holdings Pte plans to sell up to 97.16 lakh shares (2.40 per cent) and Tata Capital Growth Fund I would offload up to 48.58 lakh equity shares (1.20 per cent).

Tata Technologies is an engineering services company offering product development and digital solutions.

TCS jobs

TCS has put all vendor contracts relating to staffing under review after reports emerged that a few senior employees had allegedly accepted bribes from staffing firms.

A report from BQ Prime stated that agreements have been opened up for comprehensive scrutiny involving a review of manpower pricing, and all vendors have been asked to sign undertakings. It is, however, not clear whether the review will impact ongoing projects.

According to the company’s annual report, fees to external consultants have risen to Rs 21,337 crore in FY23 from Rs 17,049 crore in FY22. A large part of the fees is accounted for by subcontracted manpower for IT projects. The company does not give a breakup of these costs.

An email sent to TCS seeking comments has not elicited any response.

A whistle-blower has reportedly written to the TCS CEO alleging that E.S. Chakravathy, the global head of the company’s resource management group, had been accepting commissions from staffing firms for 10 years.