Wipro denies 'rumours' of stake sale

Founder promoter Azim Premji holds 73% stake in Wipro

India's third largest software services major Wipro on Monday strongly denied move to sell stake in the company, either partially or fully by its promoters.

Reacting to reports that appeared in a section of the media on Monday, Wipro management said there is no such move at this point in time. Wipro also denied that the promoters were considering any move to evaluate sale of part or whole of IT services business. "The media report is baseless and malicious. There is no truth in these unsubstantiated rumours," the company said in a statement issued to DH.

According to media reports on Monday, the company was in talks with merchant banks to get buyers and it was evaluating options of stake sale, either partially or fully.

Wipro founder and Chairman Azim Premji and his family currently hold a majority 73% stake in the IT company. The current valuation of the company is around $8 billion.

According to analysts, Wipro’s revenue contributions from top 10 clients have reduced by 4% to 17% of its IT services revenues during the past three years amid pricing pressure, technology shifts, and global uncertainties.

But others counter this argument saying Wipro is tightly held by Premji family. “Premji will not go for this adverse move as he knows the time is not ripe for that. Even though the company is not doing well it can turnaround under the leadership of new CEO Abidali Neemuchwala,” analysts said.

He also allege that the current status of Wipro is mainly because of T K Kurien who headed the company during the transition period. “He was basically a finance person who took the leadership. It was a bad choice the company made. During his leadership the company failed to make a turnaround like that of HCL, TCS and Infosys when it was the right time when technology transformation happened,” sources said.