The sponsored secondary offering of American Depository Shares (ADS) by Indian software major Infosys Technologies Ltd has been oversubscribed by more than three times.

According to a company statement here Thursday, a total of 14,693 shareholders opted to sell about 52.48 million shares as against the invitation offer for 16 million ADS, representing 16 million Indian equity shares.

"The unsold shares will be returned to all the selling shareholders by June 15. The combined holding of all shareholders who offered their shares is 184.31 million equity shares," the statement said.

As part of this offer, the company is placing 3.2 million ADS to Japanese investors through a public offer without listing (POWL) - the first of its kind by an Indian company.

Earlier, Infosys announced it was pricing the secondary offering at $67 an ADS for 14 million ADS, representing 14 million Indian equity shares.

At the close of trading on Nasdaq, the Infy scrip was being quoted at $68.75 per ADS.

"The underwriters have a seven-day option to purchase up to two million additional ADS, representing 2 million equity shares.

"The size of the offering, if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full, will exceed $1 billion," the statement said.

Since the secondary offering is a sponsored one, the company will not receive any proceeds from the issue. Net proceeds after the issue expenses will be distributed to selling shareholders within 30 days of the closing of the offering May 19.

The offer is lead-managed by Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs (Asia) LLC, and UBS Investment Bank and co-managed by ABN AMRO Rothschild LLC, Bank of America Securities LLC and Nomura International.

Nomura Securities acted as the sole book runner for the POWL. Enam Financial Consultants Private Ltd acted as the Indian financial advisor to the offering.

According to the company's filing with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US, barring a handful of shareholders, including Jamuna Raghavan, wife of former Infosys co-founder and ex-director N.S. Raghavan, not many retail investors have exercised the option of selling their shares for the second ADS issue.

Besides Jamuna opting to sell 357,216 shares, a group of 13 high net worth shareholders, with less than one percent equity holding individually, and other shareholders have not responded to the company's offer notice of May 9.

Infosys' founder-promoters and directors, however, opted to sell 5.16 million shares collectively, accounting for 32 percent of the total ADS offer.

As a result, the promoters' equity holding in the company will decline to 20.29 percent from the current 22.2 percent after the deposited equity shares are accepted by June 8.

Similarly, institutional investors, including financial institutions and securities firms, have offered to sell their equity holding to the tune of 11 million shares, constituting about 68 percent.

Among the major financial institutions, FMR Corporation, which holds over five percent stake, has offered to sell 409,561 shares, reducing its holding to 5.44 percent from 5.59 percent.

Other financial and securities firms that have over one percent stake and decided to sell a portion of their holding are UBS Securities Asia Ltd, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Oppenheimer Funds, Copthall Mauritius Investment Ltd and Deutsche Securities of Mauritius.