IT bellwether Infosys Ltd in its first quarter under new CEO Dr Vishal Sikka and its last quarter with its founders on board has delivered a par for the course financial performance registering a 3.1 per cent growth in revenues in dollar terms and a 4.5 per cent growth in rupee terms over the financial performance delivered in the first quarter of the current fiscal.
In an effort to enthuse shareholder mood ahead of the festive season and for the new leadership Infosys Ltd has also announced an interim dividend of 30 rupees per share which is equivalent to approximately $ 0.49 per American Depositary Share
The Infosys board in a meeting on Friday also approved a bonus issue of one equity share for every equity share held and a stock dividend of one ADS for every ADS held. The payment of interim dividend is dated October 17 while the date for bonus issue of shares is yet to be determined.
In quarterly results announced on Friday Infosys Ltd reported a revenues of $ 2,201 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2014 a year on year growth of 6.5 per cent. The company recorded a net profit of $ 511 million – uptick of 6 per cent over last quarter and 33.4 per cent over last year.
In rupee terms the revenue was recorded at Rs 13,342 crore for the quarter a 4.5 per cent growth over Q1 and a year on year growth of 2.9 per cent. The profit in rupee terms Rs 3,096 crore for the quarter a rise of 7.3 for the quarter and 28.6 per cent over the same period last year.
Infosys maintained its revenue guidance for 2014-2015 at a growth of seven to nine per cent.
New Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka who took over the reins of the company on August 1 said the company was seeing “early positive results” for a strategy of tapping into the digital transformation needs of businesses. “We see this as a great opportunity to help them renew the core of their business as well as to expand into new frontiers,” he said. “Our strategy is to apply the same principles to our own business in order to capture this opportunity and accelerate our growth, within our culture of lifelong learning and purposeful work,” Sikka said.
“We have been able to improve our margins during the quarter and feel confident of sustaining these within a narrow band. This is giving us increased confidence to make the investments required to meet our growth aspirations,” CFO Rajiv Bansal said.
The first quarter under the new CEO is also the last quarter at the company for two of its seven founders N R Narayana Murthy and Kris Gopalakrishnan. Murthy will end his tenure as non-executive chairman and Gopalakrishnan as non executive vice chairman as of Friday.
Infosys Ltd stated that Murthy had declined an offer from the company’s board to be chairman emeritus “to avoid any perceived conflicts’’. The chairman of the Infosys board from October 11 will be K V Kamath.
With its founders – Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, S Gopalakrishnan, S D Shibulal and K Dinesh all ceasing to be part of the company Infosys Ltd is looking at re-designating their status as “promoters/promoter group” in disclosures to stock exchanges and regulatory authorities.
“The company is in the process of seeking appropriate regulatory guidance on the same,” Infosys stated on Friday.
The company reported a gross addition of 14,255 employees in Q2 taking its employee strength to 1,65,411. The company also reported the addition of 49 new clients.
