Q4 Results 2022: Tech Mahindra, Welspun Enterprises and Uco Bank report jump in net profit; Escorts reports 28% dip in net

Q4 Results 2022: The earnings season is ongoing and several listed companies announced their March quarter results on Friday. Among them were Tech Mahindra, Welspun Enterprises and Uco Bank reported a jump in their net profits Year-on-Year (YoY), Escorts posted a dip in its Profit After Tax (PAT). Here are key highlights of the results.

Tech Mahindra Q4 Results 2022: net profit zooms 39%

IT services provider Tech Mahindra on Friday reported a 39 per cent jump in its consolidated net profit for March 2022 quarter at Rs 1,678.4 crore, and exuded confidence that the positive business momentum will continue in the current fiscal.

On a standalone basis, the Mahindra group company reported a post-tax profit at Rs 1,505 crore in the quarter under review as against Rs 1,081 crore a year ago.

The fifth-largest IT services company closed FY22 with a standalone profit of Rs 5,566 crore as against Rs 4,428 crore in FY21.

Revenue from operations grew to Rs 12,116 crore during the reporting quarter as against Rs 9,729 crore in the year-ago period, while forex increase helped in a gain on the company's other income which stood at Rs 320 crore as against Rs 32.6 crore.

The company closed the quarter with a total contract value of USD 1 billion and the fiscal with USD 3 billion in the new deals. Wins during the quarter included a 5G operator in Europe and others in areas like retail and healthcare, company officials said.

Its managing director and chief executive C P Gurnani said he is "lot confident" about the business momentum continuing in FY23 as well. Its president for corporate strategy Vivek Agarwal said the company expects its mainstay of communications, media and entertainment, and also the upcoming metaverse offerings are gaining traction in the new fiscal.

Agarwal added that the demand environment is robust and there has not been any impact of the geopolitical tensions triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine or other developments like the runaway inflation in the US.

Chief financial officer-designate Rohit Anand said the company hired 10,000 freshers in FY22, and will continue to hire with a mix of fresher and lateral workforce. The total workforce stood at 1.51 lakh.
With supply side issues on the mind, the company gave out more than one appraisal to the employees and the average salary hike stood at 10 per cent, Gurnani said.

Tech Mahindra's chief financial officer Milind Kulkarni said the operating profit margin came at 17.2 per cent as against 20 per cent in the year-ago period, and 18 per cent in the quarter-ago period. This was majorly impacted by lower utilisation levels and also supply side issues like additional pay hikes and retention money to be paid to staff, he said.

The profit line got benefited through a decline in tax rate to over 17 per cent as against 27 per cent, Kulkarni said. The tax expense stood at Rs 136 crore in the reporting quarter as against 511 crore in the year-ago period.

The company has committed USD 900 million for acquisitions in FY22, and will be focusing on integrating the companies taken over in the last 18 months in FY23, Agarwal said.

On Friday, Tech Mahindra scrip closed 0.93 per cent lower at Rs 1,202.30 a piece on the BSE as against a correction of 0.26 per cent in the benchmark index.

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Escorts Q4 results 2022: net drops 28% to Rs 190 cr

Farm machinery and construction equipment major Escorts Ltd on Friday reported a 28.42 per cent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 189.98 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2022, impacted by lower sales.

The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 265.41 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal, Escorts said in a regulatory filing.

Consolidated revenue from operations during the quarter under review stood at Rs 1,878.51 crore as against Rs 2,228.75 crore in the year-ago period.

For the quarter ended March 2022, tractor volumes were at 21,895 units, down 32.8 per cent as against 32,588 units in the year-ago period, the company said.

Construction equipment sales in the fourth quarter were at 1,286 units, down 19.8 per cent from 1,604 units earlier.

For the fiscal ended March 31, 2022, Escorts said its consolidated net profit was at Rs 735.61 crore as compared to Rs 871.63 crore in the previous fiscal, down 15.6 per cent.

Revenue from operations for FY22 came in at Rs 7,238.43 crore as compared to Rs 7,014.42 crore in FY21.

Escorts Ltd Chairman and Managing Director Nikhil Nanda said the farm sector is seeing some positive tailwinds.

"With prediction of a normal monsoon and good news on crop prices and production, we hope this sector will continue to flourish," he said, adding the construction and railway sectors have also shown signs of improvement.

With government spending focused on these sectors, the situation shall only improve from here, Nanda added.

However, he said, "Continued inflation is a big cause of worry, both in terms of suppressing potential demand as well as for ecosystem profitability."

Escorts said its Board of Directors has recommended a final dividend of 70 per cent, at Rs 7 per share of face value Rs 10 for the financial year 2021-22. 

Escorts shares today ended at Rs shares today ended at Rs 1549 on the BSE, down nearly 0.2 per cent from the Thursday closing price.

Welspun Enterprises Q4 results 2022: net profit jumps over 58% to Rs 65 cr in January-March quarter

Welspun Enterprises Ltd on Friday said its consolidated net profit jumped over 58 per cent to Rs 65 crore for the quarter ended March 31, on account of reduced expenses.

In the year-ago period, the company had clocked Rs 40.94-crore net profit, Welspun Enterprises Ltd (WEL) said in a statement.

However, its total income during January-March 2022 fell to Rs 534.64 crore, from Rs 600.97 crore in the year-ago period.

Total expenses reduced to Rs 450.06 crore in the quarter under review, as against Rs 535.32 crore in January-March 2021.

"Q4FY22 has been better with the pick-up in execution in some of our major hybrid annuity model (HAM) and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) projects. With a robust order book of Rs 84,000 million and healthy progress in key projects, we expect strong revenue performance in coming quarters," WEL MD and CEO Ajay Hans said.

The government's thrust to improve and expand the infrastructure sector, particularly in the road and water sectors, should augur well for the industry, he said, adding the pace of activity within the industry, which had been affected by the pandemic and other factors, is picking up.

Margins across the industry are getting impacted due to rising commodity prices, however, "we believe our cost optimization and project mix provides a hedge against inflationary pressures to a large extent," Hans further noted.

According to the statement, the board of the company has also approved a dividend of Rs 1.50 per share for financial year 2021-22.

Part of the Welspun Group, WEL, is an infrastructure development company focusing on road, water and wastewater segments.

Welspun Group is into line pipes, home textiles, infrastructure, steel, advanced textiles and flooring solutions. 

Welspun Enterrises shares today ended at Rs 76.20 on the BSE, up nearly 7 per cent from the Thursday closing price. 

UCO Bank Q4 results 2022: net jumps over 3-fold to Rs 312 cr as bad loans fall

State-owned UCO Bank on Friday posted an over three-fold jump in net profit at Rs 312.18 crore for the quarter ended March 2022 as a fall in bad loans lowered the provisioning requirement.

The lender had posted a net profit of Rs 80 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago.

Total income during the fourth quarter of 2021-22 was, however, down at Rs 4,362 crore, as against Rs 4,637 crore in the year-ago period, UCO Bank said in a regulatory filing.

For the full fiscal FY22, the bank's net profit grew more than five times to Rs 930 crore from Rs 167 crore in FY21.

Total income during the year was at Rs 18,082 crore, up from Rs 17,870 crore in the preceding fiscal.

The lender brought down its bad assets portion significantly as the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) came in at 7.89 per cent by end of March 2022, as against 9.59 per cent by end of March 2021.

Value-wise, the gross NPAs fell to Rs 10,237 crore from Rs 11,352 crore.

Similarly, the net NPAs were down at 2.70 per cent (Rs 3,316 crore) from 3.94 per cent (Rs 4,390 crore).

Thus, the provisioning for tax and other contingencies also fell to Rs 466 crore in Q4 FY22 from Rs 982 crore earlier.

Besides, the Kolkata-headquartered lender said it is holding Rs 4,707.36 crore provisions (including technical write-offs) -- 100 per cent of the requirement for accounts covered under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

On prudential framework of resolution of stressed assets, the bank holds additional provision of Rs 702.32 crore in nine accounts, it added.

Stock of UCO Bank ended 3.98 per cent higher at Rs 11.49 apiece on BSE. 

Inputs from PTI