Kamal Narang

Bullish performance: Mr Shiv Nadar (right), Chairman and CEO, HCL Technologies, with Mr Vineet Nayar, President, at a press conference in the Capital on Monday. —

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Aug. 13 HCL Technologies Ltd has reported a 108.9 per cent growth in its net profit for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2007. The net profit was at Rs 486.7 crore against Rs 233 crore in the same quarter the previous year.

Revenues for the quarter registered a 28.6 per cent rise to Rs 1,612 crore compared with Rs 1,253.8 crore reported in the same period last financial year.

In dollar terms, net profit rose 136.16 per cent to $119.5 million against $50.6 million in the corresponding previous quarter. Revenues grew 45.3 per cent to $395.7 million ($272.4 million).

For the financial year ended June 30, net profit increased 75.1 per cent to Rs 1,354.9 crore compared with Rs 773.9 crore for the fiscal ended June 30, 2006.

Revenues registered a growth of 37.5 per cent to Rs 6,033.6 crore against Rs 4,388.2 crore last year.

In dollar terms, net profit for the fiscal was up 82.9 per cent to $314.9 million compared with $172.1 million the year before.

Revenues registered a year-on-year growth of 42.4 per cent to $1,389.6 million against $976 million. And at a time when most technology companies were affected by the rise in rupee against the dollar, the company made a foreign exchange gain of $79.2 million due to hedging of the rupee for the year ended June 30, 2007.

“The company, with a view to protecting earnings from a future weakening of dollar has taken a cover of $1.1 billion. This should protect earnings for at least six quarters,” Mr Shiv Nadar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, HCL Technologies, said while addressing a press conference here on Monday.

The company paid a final dividend of 100 per cent in the fourth quarter taking the total dividend payout in the year to 400 per cent. It added 9,400 employees in the year taking the total strength to 42,000 as on June 30.

Mr Nadar also said that the company is decreasing its dependence on the US market and increasing its exposure in Europe and other geographies.

“The revenue from US has fallen to 54.2 per cent as on June 30, 2007 from 56.1 per cent last year. Contribution from Asia Pacific has gone up to 15.3 per cent from 14.2 per cent last year, while Europe has fetched 30.5 per cent marginally up from 29.7 per cent,” he added.

The key catalysts of growth have been Australia, New Zealand and Europe and among the service lines, infrastructure, engineering, R&D as well as BPO have witnessed accelerated growth.

“The BPO business revenue increased by $54 million for the quarter and $184.1 million for the fiscal,” Mr Nadar said.

The shares of the company on the Bombay Stock Exchange were down 0.64 per cent at Rs 317.35 on Monday.

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