How Mindtree became the object of a hostile takeover battle between its management and L&T

Winter had set in by the middle of last December when Mindtree’s management agreed to meet executives of Baring Private Equity in Bengaluru. The founder-managers, with a 13.2% stake, were looking for a white knight to save them from a predator. In the middle was a passive investor, with a 20.4% stake, who wanted to cash out.

The meeting at The Leela Palace was cordial to start with. MindtreeNSE 1.65 % was represented by three of the four founders — chairman Krishnakumar Natarajan or KK, NS Parthasarathy and chief executive Rostow Ravanan — along with chief financial officer Pradip Menon.

Café Coffee Day founder VG Siddhartha, known to friends as VGS, was present. With liquidity pressure on his diversified business portfolio, he’d been looking for a buyer for his one-fifth stake for the past few months. He stayed for introductions and left soon after.