India's major IT services company Infosys, in which UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak's wife owns a minority stake, is closing operations in Russia and trying to find replacement roles abroad for staff employed in Moscow, BBC reported quoting sources.
Infosys has also come under pressure to cease its Russian operations following the invasion of Ukraine, the UK-based broadcasting network further stated.
The development comes under the backdrop of Sunak facing burning questions over wife Akshata Murty's shares in the firm, which was co-founded by her father, NR Narayana Murthy. Earlier as well, Sunak's spokesperson has said that his wife had no role in Infosys's operational decisions. Infosys's most recent annual report lists Akshata Murthy as holding 0.9 per cent of the company's shares worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
Notably, there was no exchange filing available on this development on India's two big stock exchanges.
Infosys is one of the few IT services companies which continues to operate in Russia while most big global IT and consultancy firms such as SAP, Oracle, PwC, McKinsey, Accenture and KPMG have all closed their operations post war-like situation in Ukraine.
Recently, in a podcast, Sunak spoke about his "enormous pride and admiration" for everything his father-in-law and Infosys co-founder has achieved.
The Indian-origin finance minister was speaking in reference to recent attacks on his wife and her family over the continued presence of Infosys in Moscow amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. ''I think it's totally fine for people to take shots at me. It's fair game. I'm the one sitting here and that's what I signed up for,'' Sunak told the BBC's 'Newscast' podcast on Thursday.
''It's very upsetting and, I think, wrong for people to try and come at my wife, and you know, beyond that actually, with regard to my father-in-law, for whom I have nothing but enormous pride and admiration for everything that he's achieved. And no amount of attempted smearing is going to make me change that because he's wonderful and has achieved a huge amount, as I said, I'm enormously proud of him,'' he said.
(With agency inputs)
Also read: Rishi Sunak questioned over Infosys presence in Moscow