Edelweiss maintains 'Buy' rating on Infosys; suggests target price of Rs 1,173

Highlights: 

1. Infosys had announced exit of its President and Head – MRCL Sandeep Dadlani on June 16 this year

2. We continue to maintain ‘BUY' with a target price of Rs 1,173, says Edelweiss Securities 

After homegrown IT software services major Infosys announced exit of its senior management level employees and appointments of global leaders last Friday, Edelweiss Securities is positive on the company's earnings. 

The Bengaluru-headquartered IT company had announced exit of its President and Head – MRCL Sandeep Dadlani on June 16 this year, cited the company in a filing to the BSE. 

It had also announced appointments of other global leaders on the same day.

It has appointed Karmesh Vaswani as the Global Head – Retail, CPG and Logistics (RCL) and Nitesh Banga as the Global Head of Manufacturing to replace Dadlani.

Besides, it had announced the appointment of former Wipro executive Inderpreet Sawhney as its group general counsel with effect from July 3 this year. 

ALSO READ: Infosys appoints Inderpreet Sawhney from Wipro as group general counsel

Dadlani's role is now being split with Vaswani taking over as the global head for retail, CPG and logistics (RCL) while Banga will head manufacturing with effect from July 15. 

Both Vaswani and Banga have held strategic portfolios across the company for nearly a decade. 

Commenting on promotions of Vaswani and Banga, Infosys chief executive officer Vishal Sikka had said in statement, "I have worked closely with them over the last three years and have tremendous faith in their passion for client success and their ability to help clients see and achieve their digital aspirations. I am confident that our RCL & Manufacturing businesses will thrive under their leadership.” 

“Sandeep Dadlani has played a key role in the success of Infosys over his career and in our transformation journey these past three years...," Sikka added.

Dadlani was an integral part of Infosys for the past 16 plus years and his exit is clearly a setback given his strategic portfolio holding and the current headwinds in the IT sector, Edelweiss Securities said. 

"The exit, post brief stability in the company’s higher management, comes as a surprise as Mr Dadlani had been recently handed additional responsibility of generating more business from the company’s new software solutions, including the AI platform Nia," cited Sandeep Agarwal and Pranav Kshatriya from Edelweiss Securities in a research note released on June 16. 

"While Mr Dadlani’s exit may hamper short‐term momentum in manufacturing and the already struggling CPG verticals, we believe lateral promotions of Mr Vaswani and Mr Banga along with assistance of other senior executives, will help Infosys tide over the exit," the two analysts said in report. 

We reiterate that Infosys, equipped with ample margin levers, will outpace peers on the earnings growth front, the duo said.

"While we will closely monitor the developments in the company, we continue to maintain ‘BUY' with a target price of Rs 1,173," the two analysts further said.

At 12:23 hours, the  stock of Infosys was trading up 1.19% or Rs 11.05 at Rs 940.50 on BSE on Tuesday.  

ALSO READ: $20 billion revenue target by 2020 looks difficult, says Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka