Hinduja Global Solutions Q4 profit rises 6 pc to Rs 55 crore

Hinduja Global Solutions' consolidated net profit has increased 6.2 per cent to Rs 54.55 crore for the March 2019 quarter from the year-ago period. The company registered a profit of Rs 51.36 crore in the January-March 2018 quarter. Revenue from operations grew 27.9 per cent to Rs 1,284.58 crore in the quarter under review as against Rs 1,003.88 crore in the fourth quarter of 2017-18. The results were announced late Thursday night. "The fourth quarter is usually a strong quarter for us. Added to that, we have seen significant improvement in the performance of AxisPoint Health and a turnaround in our India domestic business. 

"Of the 28 per cent year-on-year growth in revenues, organic growth contributed 15.9 per cent, inorganic growth 6.6 per cent and the rest 5.5 per cent came from forex gains," Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) CEO Partha DeSarkar said. For 2018-19, the net profit declined 11.4 per cent to Rs 176.39 crore, while income from operations was higher 24.3 per cent to Rs 4,785.52 crore from the previous financial year. DeSarkar said the fall in profit was mainly on account of losses from the AxisPoint Health business and drop in profitability of the India domestic business.

In April last year, HGS acquired CMH Services Subsidiary LLC, US (operating under the trade name of AxisPoint Health). In December, HGS sold several nurse advice line contracts, part of the GuidePoint line of business at AxisPoint Health, as they were subscale and adversely impacting margins. "We now have stability on these fronts. For the India domestic business, we have increased our focus on financial services vertical (from telecom previously) and that has helped us," he explained.

Digital revenues as share of total revenues increased from 4 per cent in 2017-18 to 7 per cent in 2018-19. HGS signed 21 new clients during the year, including large wins in new verticals like logistics, and also expanded its presence in the US, India and the Philippines. "The business outlook for 2019-20 remains positive with strong revenue growth...HGS continues to invest in building capabilities, especially in growth areas such as healthcare and digital...Based on the visibility from new wins and a healthy pipeline, we expect to post strong topline growth in the new fiscal," he said.

Shares of HGS were trading at Rs 660 apiece, up 2.40 per cent, on BSE. At the end of March 2019, HGS had 42,190 employees, and 73 global delivery centres across seven countries.