Spotlight on Infosys promoters at AGM

“We hope the company’s main promoter (NR Narayana Murthy) and other co-founders will attend the AGM as they used to every year when they were at the helm and after since Nilekani is back as Chairman,” an Infosys investor told on Friday here. 

Murthy and other co-founders, including Nilekani, S. Gopalakrishnan, S.D. Shibulal and K. Dinesh kept away for the first time from the company’s AGM on June 24, 2017 due to serious differences over governance issues with some of the Board’s previous members and its first non-founder Chief Executive Vishal Sikka. 

“I received a letter from Nilekani over a month ago, enclosing the notice for the AGM to approve the annual accounts for fiscal 2017-18, dividend and other resolutions. With a new Board and management, I hope the company is out of its worst crisis,” said the retail investor, preferring anonymity. 

Since Nilekani rejoined the $10.94-billion software major in August 2017 eight years after he resigned as CEO to join the then UPA government as head of the state-run UIDAI, which issues the unique identification card Aadhaar, the company has embarked on Infosys-3 version, with a paradigm shift to disruptive and digital technologies. The exit of former Board Chairman R. 

Seshasayee, Sikka and two other Board members after months of bitter war with the co-founders, especially Murthy over probity in the acquisition of Panaya in 2015 and huge severance package to former Chief Financial Officer Rajiv Bansal, allowed Nilekani to step in and steer the company out of the crisis.