The Mindtree board, which deferred its meeting on Wednesday, will now meet on March 26 to discuss the buyback plan.

The board had put off its meeting scheduled for March 20 following differences of opinion among the members on whether the company should go ahead with the buyback or bring in a white knight to stall L&T’s takeover bid. 

“Mindtree Ltd has informed BSE that the meeting of the board of directors of the company is scheduled on March 26. This is in furtherance to the letter regarding adjournment of the board meeting on March 20,” a statement from the company said. 

L&T had earlier inked a deal with VG Siddhartha to buy his 20.32 per cent stake in the company for ₹3,269 crore. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of FY2020. 

The board had deferred the Wednesday meeting after Siddhartha is understood to have informed it that he will not vote in favour of the buyback as he had already entered into an agreement with L&T to sell his stake to them. Some of the board members had also made it clear that it was necessary for the board to consider all or any of the offers made by an external entity to pick up a stake in the company. 

L&T has not only bought Siddhartha’s stake but has now also placed orders with brokers to pick up another 15 per cent of the company shares from the open market. On March 18, L&T offered to buy up to 66 per cent stake in Mindtree for around ₹10,800 crore. 

The co-founders of Mindtree had posed five questions to the L&T management stating that if they go ahead with the takeover bid then it will be the first such hostile action in the 50-year-old ‘unblemished’ history of Indian IT industry.