BANGALORE: Hinduja TMT Limited (HTMT) at its board meeting held on Thursday announced a special dividend of Rs. 20 per share (200 per cent) to the shareholders out of the proceeds of the Hutchison Essar stake sale, which took place recently. This dividend is in addition to the final dividend of Rs. 7.50 per share (75 per cent) recommended in July for approval by the shareholders at the annual general meeting to be held on September 25. The board of the company also approved the de-merger of its IT/ITeS undertaking pursuant to a scheme of arrangement under Section 391 to 394 of the Companies Act, 1956 into a separate entity. The new IT/ITeS (IT-enabled services) entity will be called HTMT Technologies Limited (HTMT Tech) and is expected to list in the fourth quarter of 2006-07. The appointed date of the demerger will be October 1, 2006.

Post-restructuring of share capital, pursuant to the demerger, a shareholder of HTMT holding two equity shares of Rs. 10 each prior to the demerger would receive one equity share of Rs. 10 in HTMT Tech and one equity share of Rs. 10 in HTMT, a company statement said here. The board has also approved the merger of its media subsidiaries — In2Cable, its broadband subsidiary and InNetwork Entertainment, its content subsidiary — into Indusind Media and Communications Limited (IMCL). With this, the various media subsidiaries would be consolidated with HTMT Limited (an existing listed entity) holding 60.5 per cent equity of the merged media and entertainment entity. The merger of media and entertainment was being done to converge video, voice and data services under one entity as a premier triple play provider. The board evaluated some major acquisition opportunities for HTMT Technologies in the ITeS sector in the U.S., the U.K. and Latin American markets. These opportunities were being pursued by the company to add to its geographical reach and domain competencies. A substantial portion of the funds received from the sale of Hutchison stake would be utilised to fund these acquisitions before the end of the current financial year, it added.

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