A whistle blower stated that Bansal thought the $200 million deal was ill thought out and highly priced.
While the Infosys boardroom tussle continues to boil, a new revelation has come about. A whistler-blower, who claimed to be close to former CFO Rajiv Bansal had written on how the overpriced acquisition of an Israeli firm was opposed by the former executive, reported Mint.
Infosys has announced the acquisition of the Israeli automation technology firm Panaya on February 16, 2015 for an enterprise value of $200 million. However one day before, Bansal had walked out of the meeting where Infosys board members were asked to approve a proposal to buy Panaya. It was 30 minutes into the meeting when the former CFO, who was not a board member but attended the meeting in his capacity as the CFO, excused himself from the vote and walked out.
The whistle-blower said that Bansal felt the deal was ill thought out. He thought that the deal was highly priced and was disappointed that as the CFO, he was not kept in the loop during the entire process.
In an email sent to Mint, the whistleblower questioned why Infosys paid $200 million for Panaya which actually valued at $162 million by Israel Growth Partners.
“The Board of Infosys blindly approved the deal,” the email said. “The CFO of Infosys at that point of time, Rajiv Bansal, refused to sign off on the deal and, in fact, walked out of the discussion during the board meeting to approve this deal”.
Bansal later quit in 2015 but it cannot be confirmed if his objection to this deal was the reason for him being asked to leave Infosys. His exit brewed another controversy however. It was reported that the former company was paid a severance package of Rs 17.38 crore, which was a pay of 24 months.
This raised concerns amongst shareholders and founders who doubted whether the company was doing such payments in order to hide something. Murthy in an interview with The Economic Times, said, "Doing a forensic audit one year after the event is just laughable since everybody knows that any trace of misdeeds can be erased within that period." Former CFO Mohandas Pai said that many people approached him asking why Bansal was being paid so much. "Many people approached me and said why has he been paid, investors asked is there something wrong? Are they paying him to keep quiet?"
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