Murthys pledge wealth for social welfare projects

BANGALORE: Taking a leaf out of investment moghul Warren Buffett's social initiatives, Infosys co-founder and chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy and his wife Sudha Murthy intend to give their monies to those working in three sectors - basic healthcare, basic education and basic nutrition.

"There are lots of fabulous initiatives in the field being executed by some wonderful people to address the issues that interest us," said Murthy. "So, Sudha and I will give financial help to these people rather than doing it directly."

Buffett, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman, has similarly pledged his multi-billion dollar fortune to Microsoft founder Bill and his Melinda Gates' foundation.

Although Sudha is also the chairperson of Infosys Foundation, Murthy said they wanted to keep their personal philanthropy separate from the work of the company's initiative. The Infosys foundation is funded by a percentage of Infosys' profits that accrue to it annually.

The Murthy family's combined worth as per the latest price of Infosys scrip, is Rs 4,000 crore. The couple is worth Rs 1,750 crore, two-thirds of which belong to Sudha. A larger chunk of Rs 2,250 crore belongs to their two children, Akshata and Rohan. While Rohan is a doctoral student at Harvard University, Akshata is with a clean-tech firm in the US after completing her MBA from Stanford.

Murthy's share holding in Infosys is less than 1%. As he's been quietly giving away chunks of it, his equity stake in the company is just 0.56%, and at today's price is valued at Rs 445 crore. Sudha's 1.63% stake is worth Rs 1,300 crore. Murthy has always disclaimed beneficial ownership of shares held by his family.

The Murthys also believe in giving away the income generated by their wealth rather than the corpus itself. Their main income would be in the form of dividend from Infosys. Historically, Infosys has been a high dividend paying company so the income generated hitherto has been rather handsome.