Larsen & Toubro, India's largest engineering firm, will repurchase shares worth Rs 10,000 crore in its second attempt in four years. L&T's board of directors approved the repurchase of 3. 3 crore shares with a face value of Rs 2 each on Tuesday at a maximum price of up to Rs 3,000 per share, returning cash to investors at a significant premium to the company's closing price of Rs 2,562 on Tuesday.

L&T had to abandon its Rs 9,000-crore share buyback plan in 2019 after Sebi rejected it as non-compliant with rules. If the share buyback programme is completed successfully this time, it will be the company's first capital distribution to shareholders since it went public in 1950. According to Prime Database, this is the largest share repurchase announcement of the year so far. With the exception of L&T, the boards of eight companies have approved share buyback proposals ranging from Rs 18 crore to Rs 500 crore in 2023, according to the research firm. The engineering company's buyback programme accounts for 2.4% of its paid-up equity.

L&T CFO Shankar Raman stated that the final buyback price will be announced after shareholder approval. According to the rules, L&T can offer a price higher than the upper band (Rs 3,000). The CFO stated that following the company's previous buyback experience, it worked with Sebi to clarify the guidelines.

Sebi previously directed L&T not to proceed with the buyback because the scheme's implementation would have a negative impact on its financial ratios and would be in violation of the rules. According to Raman, if the group has a non-banking finance company with a debt-to-equity ratio of less than six, its debt would be excluded from calculating the debt-to-equity ratio for the buyback.