MindTree's Soota sells half his stake, stock surges 10%

Mumbai:  Ashok Soota, the former chairman at MindTree, has sold half of his 11.08 percent stake in a block deal  on the National Stock Exchange on Thursday.  Shares of the Bangalore-based firm have surged 10 percent as 22 lakh shares changed hands in this block deal. Soota has sold 5.5 percent of his stake to Cafe Coffee Day’s  owner VG VG Siddhartha, whose firm Global Technology Venture already has 6.12 percent stake in MindTree. Soota, who resigned from the company earlier this year,  sold the 2.2 million shares at Rs428  each. [caption id=“attachment_34400” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Rostow Ravanan, Chief Financial Officer of MindTree. Reuters”] [/caption] Shares of the Bangalore-based company, which the market values at $321.32 million, rallied as much as 19 percent to an intra-day high of Rs 430 after the deal. The stock has lost 34 percent of its value in the past six months. In January, Soota, who had co-founded MindTree in August 1999 with nine other industry professionals, resigned citing personal reasons and said he would finalise plans for a new business venture shortly after his departure. Soota’s exit had hit investor confidence with the shares plunging to over 17-month lows on the news, as MindTree had just undergone restructuring after shelving plans to launch a 3G smartphone based on Google’s Android platform in the US Agencies