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Informist, Thursday, Jul. 23, 2026

By Avishek Rakshit

KOLKATA – Putting long-drawn speculations to rest, ITC Ltd.'s Chairman and Managing Director Sanjiv Puri Thursday said that its subsidiary ITC Infotech Ltd. will not be demerged but will get listed on bourses at an appropriate time. 

"Now, ITC Infotech is a separate company so there's no question of demerger firstly. It has been doing quite well," Puri said. 

After a protracted period of anticipation from its investors, ITC demerged its hotels business from the company effective January 2025. The move led investors to expect a similar fate for ITC Infotech which they expected to be demerged and then listed. 

Although ITC had several hotels entities which now form ITC Hotels Ltd., the hotels business was reported as part of ITC in its standalone results till the December quarter of 2024-25 (Apr-Mar). ITC Infotech's revenue and profits, on the other hand, are part of ITC's consolidated results and not part of the standalone business. 

Investors reasoned that information technology business is non-core to ITC's portfolio which largely comprises consumer goods products, agricultural business, and packaging and paperboard operations.

The latter two, although non-core businesses in nature, are significantly important for ITC being strategic units. While the paper and paperboards business acts as the foundation on which ITC's office stationery and classroom products like writing pads rests, the agricultural division acts as a strategic sourcing wing for its consumer goods products. ITC also engages significantly in commodities trading and exports which earns it foreign exchange. Amid this scheme of things, a section of investors view the company's information technology arm to be a non-core business. 

Puri said that ITC is continuously building up capabilities in ITC Infotech as it believes that future will belong to IT companies that have developed capabilities that are "inch wide and mile deep and highly focused".

"That's the principle with which we are building this enterprise and when it has the right scale, and it's ready for it to be listed...the board will review that and do it at the right time," Puri said. "I mean it's not that it'll never happen but everything has to be at the right time."

During the year ended March, ITC Infotech's revenue from operations grew nearly 14% on year to over INR 48 billion and gross profits increased around 8% on year to INR 6.7 billion. Adjustments after exceptional items, however, resulted in the net profit falling over 9% on year to a little over INR 4 billion.

In FY26, ITC Infotech established new engineering hubs in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, and Melbourne in Australia, and also extended its domestic footprint with new centres in Hyderabad, Pune and Mumbai. With AI-led services being central to this expansion, the company also set up Global AI Labs in Bengaluru, Kolkata and Pune.

Sector analysts tracking ITC view demerger of businesses as the right move as it unlocks value for the shareholders and also gives investors the choice to invest in only those businesses of ITC one is interested in. 

For instance, during demerger of the hotels business, ITC Hotels issued equity shares directly to the ITC's shareholders in a manner that about 60% stake is held directly by ITC shareholders proportionate to their shareholding in ITC and remaining about 40% stake continued to be held directly by ITC. Thus, every shareholder received one share of ITC Hotels for every 10 shares of ITC held by them. However, British American Tobacco – ITC's largest shareholder, which is not interested to stay invested in the hotels business, sold 9% stake in ITC Hotels bringing its total stake to 6.3% currently. 

Thursday, shares of ITC closed flat at INR 281.30 on the National Stock Exchange. End

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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