Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, is set to earn a huge dividend income from Infosys, India’s second-largest IT firm. Murty, who is the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, held 3.89 crore shares of Infosys at the end of December, according to company filings with the stock exchanges. The company declared a final dividend of Rs 17.50 per share for FY23, and if Murty retains her shareholding until the record date of June 2, she would receive Rs 68.17 crore.
Together with an interim dividend of Rs 16.50 per share declared in October last year, she would receive a total of Rs 132.4 crore. For the previous fiscal, Infosys paid a total of Rs 31 per share dividend, giving her a total of Rs 120.76 crore. At Thursday’s closing price of Rs 1,388.60 per share on the BSE, her holding is worth just over Rs 5,400 crore.
Nationality of Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty is a divisive issue in UK
While Rishi Sunak is a British national, his wife Akshata is an Indian citizen, and her non-domiciled status, which allows her to earn money abroad without paying taxes in Britain for up to 15 years, has been a divisive issue in the UK. Her non-domiciled status became an issue of discussion in Britain when Sunak first entered the race to become the prime minister in April last year.
Akshata was born in her mother Sudha Murty’s hometown of Hubballi in northern Karnataka, and did her schooling in Bengaluru, before moving to Claremont McKenna College in California, where she graduated with a dual major in economics and French. She then did a fashion designing diploma from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, followed by a short work stint at Deloitte and Unilever. She thereafter pursued her MBA at Stanford where she met Rishi Sunak.
The two married in 2009 and currently live in a 7-million-pound townhouse in Kensington. Rishi Sunak and his wife also own a flat in Kensington, a mansion in Rishi’s Yorkshire constituency, and a penthouse in California.
Infosys dividend
Infosys is among the best dividend-paying companies in India, and according to Infosys filings, the promoters hold 13.11 per cent of the company. Of this, the Murthy family owns 3.6 per cent, with Narayana Murthy holding 0.40 per cent stake, his wife Sudha 0.82 per cent, son Rohan 1.45 per cent, and daughter Akshata 0.93 per cent. Other promoters include co-founder S Gopalakrishnan, Nandan M Nilekani, and S D Shibulal and their families.
On Thursday, the company disclosed that it had closed FY23 with a higher net profit of Rs 24,108 crore, earning a revenue of Rs 146,767 crore for FY23 against Rs 121,641 crore in the previous year and a net profit of Rs 24,108 crore against Rs 22,146 crore in the previous year.
As of March 31, 2023, Infosys had a headcount of 343,234 employees, up from 314,015 employees in the previous year.
With inputs from agencies
