Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said employees working from home, during nationwide lockdown have added to expenses. Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran, pointing out that the IT services provider had already signed long-term leases for its offices, the deployment was not cost effective.

“It is not being done for cost reasons. In fact, TCS has long term leases, so currently it is all investment and more expenses,” Chandrasekaran told shareholders at Tata Consultancy Services’ annual general meeting.

 “The work from home arrangement is something that has happened suddenly and TCS has not seen it as a temporary measure. TCS has not responded to Covid-19 as a stop-gap arrangement. TCS can only see and gauge what the trend is going to be. So, we are seeing this as a trend and are making significant investments,” he said.

 “We study every single acquisition opportunity but, as we have always said, we have to be disciplined in terms of looking at acquisitions. We don’t just acquire for the sake of revenues.”

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In his address to shareholders, Chief Executive Officer Rajesh Gopinathan said the company had generated “unprecedented” payouts to shareholders since financial year 2016.

“Over the last five years, we have distributed Rs 112,422 crore cumulatively in the form of dividends and buybacks to our shareholders. This is unprecedented and unsurpassed by any other company in corporate India,” Gopinathan said.

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TCS declared a dividend of Rs 6 per share, taking its dividend total for financial year 2020 to Rs 73 per equity share, which included four interim as well as special dividend.