Wipro may announce ₹16,000 crore buyback, Investec says; stock in focus

Shares of Wipro Ltd. will be in focus in Friday's trading session after the company said it will consider a buyback of equity shares at its board meeting on April 16, marking the first such move in nearly three years.

The April 16 meeting will also see the Bengaluru-based information technology services company announce its fourth-quarter results.

The development is largely on expected lines, with brokerage firm Investec estimating a potential buyback size of around ₹16,000 crore.

Buyback history

Wipro last undertook a buyback in June 2023, amounting to ₹12,000 crore. The company repurchased 26.96 crore equity shares, or 4.91% of its total equity, at ₹445 per share between June 22 and June 30. The price is not adjusted for the 1:1 bonus issue announced in December 2024.

Prior to that, the company had carried out a ₹9,500 crore buyback in October 2020.

Date	Buyback Size
April 2016	₹2,500 cr
July 2017	₹11,000 cr
April 2019	₹10,500 cr
Oct 2020	₹9,500 cr
June 2023	₹12,000 cr

According to Investec, Wipro currently holds nearly ₹41,000 crore in net cash, compared to about ₹28,000 crore at the time of its previous buyback.

Assuming a similar deployment of 20.4% of shareholders' funds, the company could undertake a buyback of around ₹16,000 crore.

In its third-quarter earnings commentary, Wipro's management had reiterated that share buybacks would remain a key mechanism for returning cash to shareholders.

It also indicated that earlier statutory hurdles, including approvals from the National Company Law Tribunal and pending subsidiary mergers, have now been resolved.

Shares of Wipro listed in the US ended largely unchanged, recovering from intraday lows, and were up about 2% in extended trading.