BUYBACK AND BOOST

WITH THE SEBI

stipulated one-year moratorium coming to an end in December 2018, market analysts expect India’s second largest IT exporter Infosys to announce a share buyback to boost investor sentiment. The announcement could happen alongside the third quarterly results of the company. At the beginning of the year, Infosys had committed to returning 70 per cent of free cash flow and outlaid $2 billion to be returned to shareholders, of which $400 million is to be paid as special dividends. Last year the company announced its first ever buy back and repurchased over 110 million equity shares totalling around

` 13,000 crore. Given Infosys' conservative nature and with no prior history of a billion dollar acquisition, most analysts believe that a buyback is the best option to return cash and improve earnings per share.