Vishwanath Kulkarni

Bangalore, Aug. 13 Shareholder base of the top three IT services firms has widened as investors expecting high returns flocked to blue chip tech scrips over the past three years.

The bull-run whipped-up the investor appetite for equities in recent years, and the top IT firms saw their shareholder base swell largely on account of ESOP (employee stock option) conversions, and encashment of bonus among others.

Interestingly, the expansion in shareholder base took place in both small and large shareholder categories.

Sensex bellwether, Infosys Technologies, saw a 207 per cent rise in its shareholder base in the past three years, clocking the highest growth among the top three IT services firms.

About 4,88,869 shareholders held the Infosys stock as on March 31, 2007, compared with 1,58,725 two years ago.

“We had consistently performed and delivered value to the shareholders and this is a reflection of the faith the shareholders have in the company,” said Mr V. Balakrishnan, Chief Financial Officer, Infosys Technologies, commenting on the widening of the company’s shareholder base.

For Infosys, the volume growth in shareholder base came mainly from retail investors. As a result, the number of stakeholders owning one share of Infosys increased 63 per cent to 9,606 in March 2007 over the previous year. Similarly, the number of stakeholders owning 2 to 10 shares grew 137 per cent, while those owning 11 to 50 shares saw a maximum increase of 167 per cent at 1,87,240. About 4,886 shareholders owned more than 5,000 shares compared with 2,354 in the previous year, a growth of over 100 per cent.

Wipro Ltd, which is 79.58 per cent owned by the promoter group Mr Azim Premji and family, also saw its shareholder base swell by over 100 per cent in the past three years, from 98,198 in 2005 to 1,97,774 as of March 2007. The company had about 1,92,819 shareholders owning up to 5,000 shares as of March 2007 amounting to 1.26 per cent of the total equity. This represents almost a 100 per cent rise when compared to 97,231 shareholders owning up to 5,000 shares as of March 2005.

TCS, which is 81.65 per cent owned by the promoters Tata Group, clocked the slowest growth in its shareholder base when compared to its peers. The company, which had some 7,15,284 shareholders as of March 2005, saw its shareholder base decline to 5,92,021 as of March 2006 and bounce back to 7,22,905 as of March 2007.

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