Mumbai, Mar 13 (IANS): Defying a flat-to-negative trend in the IT stocks, Mindtree shares rose over 1 per cent on Wednesday after reports emerged that Larsen and Toubro (L&T) was preparing for a hostile takeover of the infotech (IT) company.

According to a media report, L&T is set to sign a binding agreement to buy Cafe Coffee Day founder V.G. Siddhartha's stake in the company.

An announcement of this in the coming weeks is like to trigger a hostile takeover bid by the engineering major, which may make an open offer to increase its stake to 51 per cent in Mindtree.

It may eventually lead to the current management losing control of the company, reports said.

At 1.40 p.m., shares of Mindtree traded at Rs 928.05, higher by Rs 11.55 or 1.26 per cent from its previous close.

Deepak Jasani, the Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities said Mindtree stocks rose on a day when the general trend in the IT stocks was subdued and attributed the increase in share prices to acquisition reports.

The BSE IT index traded at 14,965.77, lower by 4.11 points or 0.16 per cent from its previous close.

When contacted by IANS regarding the reports, a spokesperson of L&T said: "We do not wish to comment on market speculation."