L&T sells part of Satyam stake for $66 mln - sources

People walk past the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai in this January 2009 file photo.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro sold a third of its holding in outsourcer Mahindra Satyam on Friday for about $66 million, three sources close to the deal said.

L&T, whose operations include shipbuilding and software, sold 27.2 million shares in Mahindra Satyam at 112.50 rupees each, two bankers with direct knowledge of the deal told Reuters.

Stock exchange data showed the deal was struck at 114.90 rupees.

An official at L&T, who did not want to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media, said the company was the seller in the block trade.

Nomura was the banker for the deal, sources said.

Shares in L&T, which has a market value of more than $21 billion, rose as much as 1.5 percent after the deal before coming off to trade up 0.5 percent at 1,648.70 rupees by 0752 GMT while the main market was up 0.8 percent.

Mahindra Satyam shares were down 4.9 percent at 111.70 rupees.

Mahindra Satyam was formerly known as Satyam Computer Services, which was hit by India's biggest corporate fraud at the start of the year.

In April, L&T lost the race for control of the outsourcer to Tech Mahindra Ltd, a unit of India's Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, which renamed the company.

L&T had built a 12 percent holding in Satyam, but the expansion of share capital following the takeover meant it held 6.9 percent in Mahindra Satyam.

Under the conditions of the Satyam sale, bidders were barred from selling stakes acquired prior to the bid for six months, as they were given access to financial information that was not public at that time.

($1=46.5 rupees)

(Reporting by Narayanan Somasundaram & Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)

(For Quotes and Interactive Charts of Mahindra Satyam click here)

(For Quotes and Interactive Charts of Larsen & Toubro click here)