What’s common between Akshata Murthy, Shruti Shibulal, Rishad Premji, Arihant Gajendra Kumar Patni and

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Uday Jain? They are the ‘tech kids’, the children of India’s famous tech entrepreneur-fathers but crorepatis in their own right.

Financial Chronicle analysed six IT firms with over Rs 1,000 crore market cap that have individuals as promoters -- Infosys, Wipro, Patni, Mastek, Hexaware & Polaris -- to see how the tech kids’ fortunes have changed vis-à-vis their companies between the height of slump and now.

The combined holdings of these ‘Richie Rich’ kids of Indian tech, born with a silver spoon in the mouth, has zoomed to over Rs 9,500 crore, up 144 per cent from about Rs 3,900 crore in the 15-month period from March last year till now. The rise in overall holding value does not take into account dividend income. In that time the market cap of the six companies went up by 165 per cent.

At Rs 8,352 crore, the Infosys second generation accounted for the bulk of the gain. At the top of the league are Infosys chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy’s two children, Akshata and Rohan, worth Rs 2,250 crore and Rs 2,206 crore, respectively at Wednesday’s closing price of Rs 2775.75.

Their present portfolio, which can allow them to buy a company of MindTree’s size twice over, has increased from about Rs 950 crore in March 2009, when markets crashed and the Infosys stock was at a low of Rs 1,100.

Next are Infosys chief operating officer SD Shibulal’s children, Shruti and Shreyas, who are each worth around Rs 1,019 crore, up from Rs 440 crore some 15 months ago. Twenty-five-year-old Shruti runs a plush restaurant called Caperberry in Bangalore, while Shreyas was last heard studying abroad. Others including the children of Nandan Nilekani, K Dinesh and Kris Gopalakrishnan have seen their value of stake zoom up by 132 per cent.

Wipro chairman Azim Premji’s two sons, Rishad and Tariq, own 9,46,000 shares (0.04 per cent) and 2,65,000 shares, respectively, of the company. Thus the value of their holding is Rs 38 crore and Rs 11 crore, respectively at Wednesday’s closing price of Rs 403.

Rishad, 30, has been working with Wipro and has just got a promotion to a key position (See report elsewhere on this page). Younger brother Tariq works with Azim Premji’s personal investment firm, PremjiInvest.

It should, however, be remembered that a couple of holding companies of the Premji family hold about 75 per cent while Azim Premji and his wife Yasmeen hold about 3 per cent.

Quite a few Patni scions (children of three brothers and co-founders Narendra Patni, Gajendra Patni and Ashok Patni) figure on the promoter list of the Mumbai-based Patni Computers and their stock gained by an average of over 300 per cent since March 2009. Top among them in shares held and value is Arihant Gajendra Kumar Patni at Rs 225 crore. Apoorva Ashok Kumar Patni comes next with Rs 200 crore.

Children from the Mastek, Hexaware and Polaris promoter families have small stakes valued at less than Rs 10 crore, except Uday Jain, son of Polaris chairman and managing director Arun Jain. Uday holds shares worth Rs 10.36 crore. Priyanka Nishar (daughter of Hexaware’s Atul Nishar) and Shankar Sundar (son of Mastek co-founder R Sundar) have shares worth over Rs 1 crore.

In HCL Technologies, founded by Shiv Nadar, his only daughter Roshni Nadar owns only 174 shares though it is not known how much stake she has in the firm through trusts and holding company HCL Corp.