Subroto Bagchi quits govt job, back at Mindtree to fend off L&T hostile takeover

L&T Infotech could announce the buyout of VG Siddhartha’s 20.4 percent stake in Mindtree anytime now. So, co-founder and ex-CEO Subroto Bagchi is returning home to counter the hostile takeover and ‘save the company’.

In a tweet on Sunday night, Bagchi said, “An imminent threat of a hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me resign from the Government to be able to go, save the company. I must protect the Tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers & saw chains to cut it down so that in its place, they can build a shopping mall.”

Bagchi was heading the Odisha Skill Development Authority.

An imminent threat of hostile takeover of Mindtree has made me to resign from the Government to be able to go, save the company. I must protect the Tree from people who have arrived with bulldozers & saw chains to cut it down so that in its place, they can build a shopping mall.

— Subroto Bagchi (@skilledinodisha) March 17, 2019

Bagchi said that Mindtree has not been designed as an “asset” to be bought and sold. “It is a national resource. It has a unique culture that humanizes the idea of business. It sets the standards of corporate governance. I need to be there in its time of difficulty. Hence the hard decision to return,” he added.

Mindtree has not been designed as an “asset” to be bought & sold. It is a national resource. It has a unique culture that humanizes the idea of business. It sets the standards of corporate governance. I need to be there in its time of difficulty. Hence the hard decision to return

— Subroto Bagchi (@skilledinodisha) March 17, 2019

Meanwhile, Mindtree board members Krishnakumar Natarajan and Rostow Ravanan have written to the L&T against the possible hostile takeover.

In the letter that was sent to the L&T board and shared on Twitter by CNBC TV18, states that the reports of hostile takeover by L&T has alarmed various stakeholders of Mindtree including institutional investors, clients, customers and employees.

“Many of them have expressed to the management unequivocally that they would not like to be a part of the organisation that is culturally perceptibly different from Mindtree, or where there are minimal revenue and cost synergies.

“I also recollect several email exchanges between us in Jan/February 2019 where we had expressed our concerns based on data relating to previous integrations of large IT service providers that any transaction with you would be value destructive  to Mindtree and all its stakeholders,” the letter reads.