Beating market expectations, IT firm Mahindra Satyam today reported 5-fold rise in profit after tax to Rs 308 crore for the quarter ended December 31.
It had reported PAT of Rs 59 crore in the third quarter (October-December) in 2010-11.
The company’s Q3 consolidated revenue was Rs 1,718 crore, up 34% year-on-year.
It made forex gain of Rs 66.39 crore on account of appreciating US dollar against the rupee.
Mahindra Satyam chairman Vineet Nayyar said that without the forex gain, the company’s revenues are almost flat, 0.3% drop, compared to previous (July-September) quarter.
"From a volume point of view, yes there is a de-growth of about 0.3%. Now, I will consider it to be almost flattish from a volume perspective," Nayyar said at a press conference, after announcing the results.
Earlier in a statement he said, "We continue on our path of building the organisation and improving our operating matrix in the face of some headwinds on the economic front."
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Mahindra Satyam CFO Vasant Krishnan said the EBIDTA, or operating margins grew by 10% during the quarter, over Q3 FY11.
To a query on the merger with Tech Mahindra, Nayyar said, "Hopefully, as I have said, by October we should have both the companies close to the merger. Beyond that at this point, I cannot say anything because there are so many issues which will come up as we go along. And they do take time. The normal timeline that takes for a merger is 7-8 months," Nayyar said.
On the suit filed against former board and auditors, Nayyar said the company is seeking Rs 270 crore and the figure could go higher.
Following the effective turnaround of the fraud-hit Satyam Computer into a successful business venture, Mahindra Satyam believes that it is high time for the the former auditors, management and owners to pay up for their past misdeeds at the company.
Once a leading Indian IT company, Satyam Computer was hit by a multi-million dollar corporate fraud, admitted by its own founder and then chief B Ramalinga Raju over three years ago.
After the government intervention into the case, the company was sold through an auction process to the auto-to-technology conglomerate Mahindra group, which renamed it as Mahindra Satyam.
The company's CEO CP Gurnani said they are observing the macroeconomic changes and constantly focusing on operating levers.
"Somewhere down the line we are quite conscious that we can’t get ahead of ourselves and we need to constantly focus on all our operating levers and are constantly focused on making sure that we do not create an inventory that we are be able to serve.
"That’s why our hiring has started becoming a lot more controlled because we are very clear that we need to watch the market, we need to stay close to our customers," Gurnani said.
Meanwhile, the total headcount at the company was 32,280 as of December 31, 2011 -- net addition of 188 employees quarter-on-quarter.
The attrition rate at the company was 16% in Q3, down from 25% in the corresponding period last year.