Ranganath's exit could choke off Infosys's stock momentum

 
That ‘high-performer’ attrition was well below overall churn used to be the standard refrain from IT major Infosys when queried on its losing talent. The recent resignation of chief financial officer (CFO) Mavinakere Dwarakanath Ranganath has put paid to that claim.

The company told the stock exchanges on August 18 that Ranganath, an Infosys veteran of 18 years and CFO for the last three, will leave by November 16. Analysts pointed out that this will force the company to look for its fourth CFO in five years.

Infosys’s stock price has risen by 38 percent this calendar year (as on August 17, a day before Ranganath’s resignation came to light) in part, on the expectation that CEO Salil Parekh would get Infosys back on the growth track after Vishal Sikka’s acrimonious exit last August.  

The exit of Ranganath follows “a string of exits at the senior level [which] continues unabated,” analysts at Mumbai brokerage Motilal Oswal wrote in a note. “This is disconcerting, compounded by the fact that the spike in attrition [20.6 percent] in the last [Q1FY19] quarter also saw high performers’ exit.”

The analysts at Motilal Oswal said the momentum in Infosys’s share price could be punctured by Ranganath’s exit.