Mumbai, Feb 20 (IANS): Global software major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Monday announced that it will buy back up to 5.61 crore equity shares of Re 1 face value for Rs 16,000 crore.

The decision to buy back the blue chip shares was taken by the city-based company's Board of Directors at a meeting here on Monday afternoon.

"The 'Buyback Size' being 2.85 per cent of the total paid-up equity share capital, at Rs 2,850 per equity share," said TCS in a regulatory filing to the BSE here.

The buyback will be made from the shareholders on a proportionate basis through the tender offer route using the stock exchange mechanism in accordance with the provisions in the SEBI Regulations, 1998, the Companies Act, 2013 and rules made there under.

The pre-buyback shareholding pattern as on February 17 showed that the promoter (Tata Group) owns 73.31 per cent in the software major, followed by FII, FPI, NRIs, foreign national and OCB 16.89 per cent, Indian FIs, banks and mutual funds 5.31 per cent, resident individual and others 3.80 per cent, bodies, corporate, LLP, Trust and NBFC 0.59 per cent and clearing members 0.10 per cent.

A total of 636,975 institutional and individual investors hold the company's 19.7-crore equity shares.

The company's scrip price on the BSE gained 4.08 per cent or Rs 98.35 per share to Rs 2,506.50 per equity share from previous (Friday) close of Rs 2,408.15 and opening price of Rs 2.419.