Tata Sons raises Rs 1000 cr through TCS stake sale

Tata Sons has mobilised over Rs 1,000 crore through dilution of its shareholding by nearly 1 per cent in the group's IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

TCS today informed the stock exchanges that its promoters Tata Sons sold 8.17 million shares, representing 0.84 per cent stake, in the open market during January 24 to February 6. At today's market price, these shares are valued at Rs 1,062 crore.

The share price of TCS fell 0.61 per cent today to Rs 1,300.05 against yesterday's close of Rs 1,306.25. Although the stock exchange intimation did not mention about the proposed use of the fund, analysts said Tata Sons would utilise it to part finance Corus acquisition.

Tata Steel had won the foreign steel company through auction on January 31 for $12.15 billion ( nearly Rs 55,000 crore). Tata Sons and Tata Steel would contribute $ 4.1 billion for the acquisition while the remaining amount would be raised through debt.

Post acquisition, Tata Steel will emerge as world's fifth largest steel company, from its existing rankings of 56th, with a combined annual capacity of 23.5 million tonne of steel.

Tata Sons has slowly been reducing its stake in TCS. Its shareholding came down to 78.35 per cent on December 31, 2006 from 79.5 per cent on September 31, 2006. The Tata group held 82.49 per cent stake in TCS on December 31, 2006.

Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro are arrangers for debt. It is also learnt that Standard Chartered will provide over $ 1 billion. Domestic banks including SBI and ICICI Bank are believed to have agreed to provide $600 million.