iGate's net profit flat at Rs 70 cr

Information technology services company iGate has posted a flat growth in its net profit at Rs 70 crore ($14.3 million) for the quarter ended September 30 on account of high interest costs. Interest expenses of the company impacted its net profit by $19.5 million, the company said.

Revenues of the Nasdaq-listed company, which completed the integration of Mumbai-based Patni Computer Systems it had acquired earlier, jumped by 225 per cent to $265.7 million in the quarter on a year-on-year basis.

"With the first and second phase of integration (of iGate and Patni) largely done, I am pleased with the positive results in the combined company. We still have a long way to go to fix our new sales engine. But overall, we are making good progress," CEO Phaneesh Murthy said.

In a sequential basis (when compared with the trailing quarter), net profit grew more than three-fold whereas the revenues were up 56 per cent.

The company added 24 new customers during the quarter, including six Fortune 1,000 companies. Murthy said the company was planning to hire 4,000-5,000 people in 2012. iGate’s headcount as of September 30 stood at 26,216.

On the clients' IT budgets for 2012, he said while it could marginally increase for some verticals, for others it could remain stable or decline marginally.

"We sense that the IT budgets may be marginally up for some verticals like media and entertainment, healthcare and flat to marginally down for others like banking and financial services," he said.