Polaris Q1 net profit up 8.2% at Rs 39.72 cr

Polaris Consulting and Services today posted an 8.2 per cent rise in its consolidated net profit at Rs 39.72 crore for the first quarter ended June 30.
During the quarter, revenue from operations remained nearly flat at Rs 495.5 crore, as against Rs 492.8 crore in the year-ago period.
During FY 2016-17, the focus would be on digital banking transformation, the company said.
"Our revenue for the quarter remained relatively flat at Rs 495.5 crore as compared to Rs 492.8 crore during the same period last year inspite of drop in revenue from our largest customer on account of the productivity savings programme," Polaris Chief Financial Officer N M Vaidyanathan said in a statement.

It "was partially offset by restatement of revenue recognised to comply with IND-AS (Indian Accounting Standards), annual performance driven pay, bonus payments and tax payments made during the quarter impacted our cash position," he added.
Polaris expects liquidity to improve in coming months driven by internal cash accruals with no significant capital expenditure planned in the near future, he added.

In dollar terms, revenues stood at USD 74 million.
The cash and cash equivalents stood at Rs 352.78 crore at the end of the quarter.
"As Virtusa and Polaris continue to integrate operations and marketing strategies, we have started to experience early signs of synergic benefits. Going forward, we anticipate that the combined capabilities of both organisations will support Polaris' endeavour to increase marketshare in the BFS (banking and financial services) vertical," Polaris CEO and Executive Director Jitin Goyal said.

Last year, US-based IT outsourcing firm Virtusa had announced that it would buy majority stake in Polaris Consulting and Services, for about $180 million (Rs 1,173 crore).
Announcing its results, the company further said that the average utilisation was pegged at 71.7 per cent (onsite at 88.2 per cent and offsite at 67.1 per cent), while the headcount stood at 7,197 as of June 2016.
The DSO or Days sales outstanding - a measure of the average number of days that a company takes to collect revenue after a sale is made - stood at 89 days as compared to 78 days in previous sequential quarter due to increase in unbilled revenue.