Friday, May 27 2005 09:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: The sponsored secondary offer of India's second largest software exporter Infosys Technologies yesterday (May 26, 2005) was oversubscribed eight times with Indian shareholders tendering over 52.4 million shares to convert their stock to American Depository Receipts (ADR) at an offer price of $ 67 per ADR with the total offer valued over $ 1 billion.

The secondary offer got huge response from investors in the US who offered to buy shares eight times more than was on offer and the acceptance ratio was 8.3 shares for every 100 shares tendered, Infosys CFO T V Mohandas Pai told reporters over a conference call from New York last night.

The NASDAQ-listed Infosys's issue witnessed three times demand from Japanese investors. Infosys offers 3.2 million shares for Japanese investors under the public offer without listing (POWL), the first offer by an Indian firm in Japan.

Infosys promoters and directors are expected to net Rs 1500 crore from the issue, which is being sold at 37 per cent premium over shares traded on the Indian stock exchanges.

Infosys top honchos including CEO and Managing Director Nandan M Nilekani and COO S Gopalakrishnan participated in the opening bell of the NASDAQ stock market (Indian time evening) to commemorate the issue, the largest international equity offering from India.

Infosys will not receive any proceeds from this offer and the money raised would be given to the shareholders who sold their shares.