Infy mandates Goldman, SSB, Merrill for ADS offering

Infosys Technologies has mandated Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney to manage its sponsored American Depository Share ADS issue, which is slated for the beginning of next year. Infosys officials, when contacted, declined to comment on the development.

The domestic partners of Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, which is Kotak Mahindra and DSP, respectively, will be handling a lot of the domestic on ground activity. 8220;The idea is to launch the issue before the end of the current fiscal,8221; said one source with an investment bank. The board of directors of Infosys had announced the sponsorship of an international ADS offering, against equity shares held by its existing shareholders in India, at a price to be determined by the lead manager to the offering. The Board has said that the offering size would be between 2 million equity shares to 3 million equity shares that is 4 million ADS to 6 million ADS.

The company will convene an Extraordinary General Meeting of its members to seek approval for the proposed offering. All shareholders, as on the record, date would be eligible to tender their shares in the offering on a pari-passu basis. Infosys will not be issuing any new shares in the offering. The company has said that the proceeds of the secondary offering, after meeting the issue expenses, will be proportionately paid to the shareholders of Infosys, who have deposited their equity shares, for the purposes of the offering.