Amarchand advises in gifting 87 stake in Wipro Ltd to the Azim Premji Trust

Azim Premji, CEO of Wipro Technologies has announced a donation of 213 million shares of his holding in Wipro to Azim Premji Trust that will focus on various social, not-for-profit initiatives. At the current value of Wipro’s stock at Rs. 428, the value of the donation zooms to Rs. 9,116 crore ($2.02 billion)..Amarchand & Mangaldas advised the Azim Premji Group with a team led by Managing Partner Cyril Shroff and Partner Nivedita Rao. Amarchand had also previously advised, the Azim Premji Group in the settlement and formation of the Azim Premji Trust..ET reports that once the share transfer is complete, the promoters’ stake in Wipro would come down to 72 percent from 79.36 percent. The share transfer would be concluded on December 7. Asked if the move was aimed at bringing down the promoters participating interest to 75 percent, in line with proposed new norms making it mandatory for the public to hold a minimum 25 percent stake in listed companies, Azim Premji Foundation CEO Dileep Ranjekar replied in the negative..In July this year, the Government amended the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules by raising the threshold for public shareholding in the listed companies. The government through the Securities Contracts (Regulation) (Amendment) Rules, 2010, had mandated listed companies to arrive at a 25 percent shareholding in the next three years. The Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee in his budget speech had said, that in order to increase transparency and manipulation the threshold limit of public shareholding has to be increased to 25 percent.