Narayan Murthy's Gift For Grandson Shrinks, As Infosys Shares Slump

It was barely a week ago, that Infosys co-founder Narayan Murthy reportedly bequeathed shares worth over Rs 240 crore to his four-month-old grandson. The report was covered extensively on 18 March. According to some, the company scion may have lost close to Rs 10 crore before turning a year old.

The facetious commentary aside, on the day of the news, the shares of the IT-giant, listed on NSE were trading at Rs 1,623.70 per piece. By the end of the day, the shares slumped to Rs 1,601.80. The series of decline continued in the coming days, as the shares reached Rs 1,554.05 by midweek.

The slump only continued, to a point, where the equity lost 6.91 per cent of its value in just the matter of five days. At the end of the previous trading week, when the markets closed on 22 March, the firm's share price stood at Rs 1,511.45 per piece, with a deficit of Rs 112.25.

In the larger picture, after surging post a decline, just in the past one month, the value of each individual share of the company has declined by 8.96 per cent. This beyond the blitzkrieg of PR may it be connected to the founders or to their younger heirs, points towards a pattern.

Amongst its peers of Indian Tech companies, Infosys does not appear to be all alone. This as Wipro and TCS shares have also a declined. In TCS' case, the drop amounts to 1.61 per cent in the last day of the previous week. For Wipro, the drop, is of an even bigger 2.46 per cent.

This comes at a time, when major names in the tech industry, throughout the globe have performed well, on the major stock markets across the board. May it be tech companies on Japan's Nikkei or American behemoths of the industry on Wall Street. Whether this apparent contrast in fortunes is limit to the equity markets or is this signal of something more, is something that would reveal itself in the time to come.