Company Founders Find Fighting Back Has a Cost in India

(Bloomberg) -- The tussle between management and the founders of Infosys Ltd. came to a head Friday, with the ouster of Chief Executive Officer Vishal Sikka wiping more than $3 billion off the Indian software giant’s market .

Sikka blamed the distractions created by acrimony between Infosys’ board and a group of the company’s founders led by ex-chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy for his departure. The showdown comes less than a year after a similar fracas at Tata Group, which saw its founders reclaim control from the chairman last October with little by way of explanation.

Tata, too, paid a price for internal discord, with shares in the firm’s flagship Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. shedding the equivalent of about $10 billion in market in the 2 1/2 weeks after chair Cyrus Mistry’s ejection.