A nearly 6 per cent drop in shares of Infosys Ltd not only dragged peer IT counters and benchmark indices such as Sensex and Nifty, but also hit fortunes of the Murthy family, notionally.
Co-founder and promoter NR Narayana Murthy (NRN) owned 0.40 per cent stake in Infosys, while his wife Sudha N Murty held 0.92 per cent stake in the IT major at the end of September quarter. His son Rohan Murty and daughter Akshata Murty, who is also the wife of ex-UK PM Rishi Sunak, owned 1.62 per cent and 1.04 per cent stakes, respectively, in the second largest IT firm. NRN's grandson Ekagrah Rohan Murty, held a marginal 0.04 per cent stake in Infosys as well.
Together, the five members of the Murthy family owned 4.02 per cent stake in Infosys, which was worth about Rs 30,300 crore today following the stock fall compared with Rs 32,152 crore on Thursday, a fall of over Rs 1,850 crore. The December quarter shareholding pattern for Infosys is not available with stock exchanges.
Infosys shares fell 5.89 per cent to hit a low of Rs 1,812.70 on BSE, trimming the six-month gains for the It stocks to 5.42 per cent. This is despite the fact that Q3 results beat estimates on many fronts. "Infosys' headline numbers were strong - revenues grew 1.7 per cent CC QoQ, exceeding expectations. Underlying construct, however, was not. Sequential growth was constituted by higher pass-through (1.5 per cent QoQ; likely more in CC) and in-organic contribution (0.2 per cent), implying flat core business growth," JM Financial said.
Essentially, seasonal softness due to furloughs was offset by seasonal uptick in pass-through revenues. Scepticism around rising pass-through is understandable, but it should not be surprising, JM Financial said.
Large deal wins -- the absence of mega deal wins in Q3, bring uncertainty over whether the IT firm may see double-digit growth in FY26. Besides, despite the FY25 revenue guidance upgrade, the ask rate for Q4 suggests a de-growth ahead, thanks to seasonality and a reversal of third-party sales-led business. Many brokerages are just not ready for upgrading the IT stock to 'Buy' from "Hold'.
"Though the FY25 revenue guidance has been revised upward, it implies minus 2.2 per cent to minus 0.2 per cent QoQ growth in CC for Q4, indicating a potential revenue decline due to seasonality, fewer working days and drop-in third-party revenue seen in Q3," said Sharekhan said.
The Infosys management said clients are still focusing more on cost-takeout deals than on discretionary spends. They continue to see signs of a pickup in discretionary spends and a recovery in the BFSI and retail verticals in the near term, it noted.