BPEA sells Coforge stake for ₹7,684 cr

livemint.com:

MUMBAI : BPEA EQT on Thursday sold its entire 26.63% stake in Coforge Ltd (formerly NIIT Technologies) for ₹7,684 crore to multiple investors through bulk deals, leaving the software services firm without a promoter and the first of its kind to be entirely owned by public investors. The block deals in the software services firm boosted its stock by around 10% to ₹5,391 on Thursday, with the transactions drawing marquee investors such as SBI Mutual Fund, Aditya Birla Mutual Fund, Capital Group and Kotak Mahindra Group. Coforge is a professionally managed company, and hence, no identifiable promoter is a good thing, said an analyst.

“That’s how a lot of matured companies in the US are. They are all 100% publicly owned. Besides, now the large mutual funds and other shareholders will sit on the board, which is a positive," the analyst said on condition of anonymity.

BPEA sold its 16.27 million shares at ₹4,722.15 each in a series of bulk deals. The shares were sold at a 4% discount to Coforge’s Wednesday closing price of ₹4,913.1. SBI Mutual Fund, the country’s largest asset management company, bought 4.2% of Coforge for ₹1,213.84 crore in Thursday’s transaction.

Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co., through one of its schemes, acquired a 1.42% stake for ₹406.96 crore, while US-based investment manager Capital Group-owned Smallcap World Fund Inc. acquired 1.1% in Coforge for ₹311.25 crore. Private insurer ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co.

Ltd bought shares worth ₹201 crore in the deal from BPEA. Other major investors such as HDFC Mutual Fund, Societe Generale (through an offshore derivative instrument) and Aditya Birla Sun Life MF acquired shares worth ₹306.82 crore, ₹216.2 crore and ₹149.65 crore, respectively. “The split