Open Market Buybacks Return: Who Buys First?

Open Market Buybacks Are Back — What SEBI's August 1 Move Means SEBI's decision to reinstate the open market buyback route through stock exchanges, effective August 1, 2026, is the most significant capital-return development for Indian equities this year. The route was suspended in 2023 after SEBI flagged concerns around price manipulation and low actual utilization rates. Three years later, it's back — presumably with tighter guardrails — and cash-rich companies now have a third tool alongside tender offers and book-building. Why does this matter? Because open market buybacks are quieter, more flexible, and frankly more potent as a price-support signal than tender offers. A company can buy back shares on any trading day without telegraphing a fixed price to the market in advance. That discretion is valuable. It also means management teams can act opportunistically when the stock dips — which is exactly the kind of behavior that rewards existing shareholders. The sectors most likely to move first are IT, FMCG, and Pharma. These are businesses with strong, recurring free cash flow, low capital expenditure needs relative to earnings, and management teams that have used buybacks before. This isn't a guess — it's pattern recognition from the 2018–2022 buyback cycle. IT Sector Leads the Queue Look at the balance sheets. [Infosys](/stock/INFY) (NSE: INFY) had ₹28,479 crore in cash and equivalents as of March 2026 and has returned capital to shareholders in every one of the last six fiscal years. [TCS](/stock/TCS) (NSE: TCS) is sitting on a net cash position that most CFOs would consider embarrassing to leave idle. [Wipro](/stock/WIPRO) (NSE: WIPRO) and [HCL Technologies](/stock/HCLTECH) (NSE: HCLTECH) have both completed buybacks in the ₹2,500–10,000 crore range in recent years. The open market route gives these companies something the tender offer didn't: price-sensitive execution. Instead of announcing a fixed buyback price at a 15–20% premium and watching arbitra...