INFOSYS LTD - RESULTS FOR - Q2 FY 13-14 - Q.E.SEP 2013 - REVENUE GROWTH 31.5%YoY; NPT GROWTH 1.6%YoY; DUE TO ONE OFF PROV.OF RS.219 CR. - GUIDANCE UPPED - GOOD RESULTS

INFOSYS LIMITED

CONSOLIDATED RESULTS FOR Q2 FY 2013-14

Q/E SEP, 2013

Financial Highlights

· Revenues were Rs.12,965 crore for Q/E September 30, 2013 QoQ growth was 15.1%  YoY growth was 31.5%

· Net profit was Rs.2,407 crore; QoQ growth was 1.4% YoY growth was 1.6%.
Significantly, Shibulal, the company's CEO & MD has indicated that Margins would not be the first priority at least for next couple of quarters. This means, that the company will be focusing more on Growth - to catch up with its rivals first. The CEO also says that Business environment has seen a pick up in last couple of quarters - These statements indicate a renewed confidence in the future.

· EPS (including the provision of Rs.219 crore for visa related matters) was  Rs.42.12 for Q/E September 30, 2013 QoQ growth was 1.4% ; YoY growth was 1.6% ; EPS for the quarter is Rs.45.96 per share, excluding  provision of  Rs.219 crore for visa related matters. The difference is Rs.3.84 per share.

· Liquid assets including cash and cash equivalents, available-for-sale  financial assets, and government bonds were Rs.26,907 crore as on September 30, 2013 versus Rs.24,078 crore as on June 30 , 2013

Other highlights:

· Infosys and its subsidiaries added 68 clients during the quarter

· Gross addition of 12,168 employees (net addition of 2,964) for the quarter by Infosys and its subsidiaries. However - the attrition Rate has jumped to 17.3 % in Q2 from 16.9% in the preceding quarter.

During the period, the IT major's attrition rate increased to 17.3 percent compared to 16.9 percent in the June quarter.

Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/result-analysis/infosys-results-attrition-rate-jumps-to-173sept-quarter_968062.html?utm_source=ref_article

During the period, the IT major's attrition rate increased to 17.3 percent compared to 16.9 percent in the June quarter.

Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/result-analysis/infosys-results-attrition-rate-jumps-to-173sept-quarter_968062.html?utm_source=ref_article

During the period, the IT major's attrition rate increased to 17.3 percent compared to 16.9 percent in the June quarter.

Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/result-analysis/infosys-results-attrition-rate-jumps-to-173sept-quarter_968062.html?utm_source=ref_article

· 1,60,227 employees as on September 30, 2013 for Infosys and its subsidiaries

· Declared an interim dividend of Rs.`20 per share. The record date for the payment of dividend is October  18 , 2013

"During the quarter we witnessed broad - based volume growth, robust client additions, five large deal wins and increased sales momentum of our big data and cloud offerings. This growth is a result of our focus on execution, which helps our clients achieve their objectives." said S. D. Shibulal, CEO and Managing Director.  "We will continue with planned investments and initiatives to explore new avenues of growth. We remain watchful of the sustainability of improving global economic fundamentals", he added.

“ The global currency market remains volatile with the Indian Rupee depreciating by 11 % during the quarter. We have an active hedging program to minimize its impact on our margins. We will continue our focus on optimizing costs and enhancing the efficiency of our operations,” said Rajiv Bansal, Chief Financial Officer.

The company’s outlook (consolidated) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, under IFRS is as follows:

· Revenues are expected to grow 21% to 22%

* Conversion 1 US$ = `62.61 for the rest of the fiscal year

Business  Highlights

· Infy says –

We are pursuing and winning large outsourcing deals. Service innovations like Global Agile, Virtual Operations and Integrated Application Management continue to provide high levels of differentiation for us in the marketplace and have enabled wins across industry verticals.

We have recently entered into a four-year engagement with  Toyota Motor Europe to manage its Pan-European application support.

This contract covers key operational areas including core automotive processes and corporate functions, under a managed service model.

· On the Business Transformation front, we have enhanced our scale in emerging markets and our non-linear revenues by leveraging new business models and pricing structures. We continue to leverage our alliances and are driving innovation through industry leading intellectual property and solutions.

· We continue to strengthen our competencies in Oracle and SAP practices. We have been rated as a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Oracle Application Implementation and Application Management Services, and for SAP Application Management services.

· Our Products and Platforms business continues to grow at a steady pace with 15 wins this quarter (excluding Finacle™).

· Finacle™ had 18 new wins across South Asia, South East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Australia -New Zealand this quarter . We launched Finacle 11E, the enterprise edition of Finacle ™ universal banking solution. Finacle 11E is designed to simplify banking transformation with enterprise-class components.

· We are building momentum in the market with our Cloud and Big Data offerings. Last quarter, we won over 15 new projects with clients in these segments. We are a leader in Cloud services with more than 4,500 Cloud experts, 200 engagements and 35 partners. This was validated by IDC’s recognition of Infosys as a Major Player in its IDC Market Scape for Cloud Professional Services.

· We are engaging with clients to create innovative solutions around the mobile device. This quarter we began over 25 different engagements in various areas such as Mobile strategy consulting, Mobile field service, customer engagement, and enterprise productivity, among others.

· In the U.S., we are partnering with leading healthcare and public sector organizations through Infosys Public Services Inc., to help them deliver patient

-centric care and mission outcomes.

A Blue Cross Blue Shield Plan awarded us a three year managed services contract to support its IT operations and provide application maintenance and testing services. This will enable the client to optimize efficiency and cost

while delivering enhanced care and services to members. We have also been selected by a multi-state Medicaid/Medicare Plan to implement a solution

that meets shared member liability management requirements, as mandated for participation in health exchanges under the U.S. Affordable Care Act.

· During the second quarter, Infosys applied for 21 unique patent applications in India and the U.S. With this, we have 536 patent applications undergoing various stages of patent prosecution in India, the U.S. and other jurisdictions. We have been granted 119 patents by the United States Patent and trademark  Office and 3 patents by the Luxembourg patent office.

OTHER NEWS & COMMENTS ON THE RESULTS

The Company has performed well – and has indicated much better Guidance for the Future, which is very significant. There is no more Gloomy forecasting from Infosys – as in previous quarters. The quarter’s wins are also very significant.

REUTER SAYS - INFOSYS Ltd's refocus on big-ticket contracts since the return of its founder has begun to pay off as India's No. 2 software services exporter crossed $2 billion in quarterly sales for the first time and pushed up its revenue outlook

Still, a one-off provision left Infosys reporting profit that missed analyst estimates in its first full-quarter earnings since Narayana Murthy came out of retirement, during which time the industry bellwether lost ground to rivals such as  TCS.

....Under Executive Chairman Murthy, Infosys is increasing investment in sales and doing a better job at winning large outsourcing contracts to which it is devoting more senior management attention.

.....Infosys pointed to Australia, its third-biggest market, as evidence of recent success, winning all six of the deals it competed for above $75 million in value over the last two quarters.

Globally, Infosys won five large contracts worth a combined $450 million in the September quarter.

"Our focus on proactively creating large deals has led to significantly better pipeline," CEO S.D. Shibulal told analysts.

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RBI EASES LIQUIDITY TIGHTENING - SEEMAANDHRA AGITATION - WHAT GOOD ALTERNATIVES EXIST?

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

NEWS – GOOD, BAD & SAD

There are always a few news that are heartening and invigorating. There are also always a lot of news which are depressing and demoralizing. Some news are – just not worth reading. Here are the Good, Bad and the Sad

1.  Excellent : Raghuram Rajan, the RBI Governor,  has eased Liquidity tightening – by reducing the Penal Rate of Interest and by agreeing to lend to Banks for a longer Duration. The rate of lending under MSF is reduced by 50 basis points to 9%. RBI has also introduced RBI lending to Banks for 7 days and 14 days instead of the present overnight lending. These measures will certainly improve the liquidity conditions for lending by Banks – and will go a long way in promoting Loans by banks. RBI has taken a very timely and pragmatic step. Banks which, markets thought would be affected by the liquidity tightening , will now be relieved of the pressure on them now. However, I feel, Raghuram Rajan can also gradually reduce the Interest Rates (Repo & reverse Repo) so that our manufacturers need not borrow outside India. I do not agree with the RBI Gov’nor’s logic that high Interest rates are a small fraction of the total manufacturing costs and therefore, do not affect our competitiveness. Total manufacturing cost is equal to the total capital – including working capital – being used by a firm. Incremental expansions and new units creation - become viable only when ROC is substantially greater than Interest on capital. In India, that is not the case. That is why, flight of capital is happening in India. If a firm can borrow at 2% interest and establish its manufacturing unit in China or US and sell at a cost differential of 8 % (ROC=10%), they will prefer China or US for establishing their units. Why will they choose India, where cost of capital itself is much more than 10%? I hope RBI Governor will reconsider his position on this.

2.   SEEMANDHRA ON BOILING POT : The Centre’s announcement of a separate Telangana state – without an iota of compensating measures for Seemandhra was bound to anger the Seemandhra region, anyway. What makes matters worse, is the total ignorance of the centre to the dangers inherent in making Hyderabad City a part of the new Telangana state. The Centra, or for that matter, India, cannot wish away the dangers of naxalism and Islamic terrorists in the New state, if Hyderabad is left to Telangana State. News Reports suggest that Centre had intelligence reports to that effect but is brushing the reports aside. If so, the centre is committing a bad mistake. One must go back to Sardar Patel’s efforts to unite Hyderabad with India. Why is the Congress today lacking the foresight of Sardar Patel? It is creating a problem, which nobody will ever be able to solve.

Till N.T.Ramarao was elected as Chief Minister, Hyderabad was looking like a part of the most backward areas of west Asia and not as a part of India. The current crop of so called Telangana  leaders were nowhere in sight then. Even though there were a number of CMs and Ministers from Telangana ALWAYS, they failed to develop any part of Telangana, including Hyderabad. This is a Historic Fact. It was only N.T.Ramarao, Chandrababu Naidu and to some extent, YSR who developed Hyderabad and Telangana regions during their Rule. 

The entire Telugu Film Industry, including actors, technicians, producers, directors – everybody, migrated to Hyderabad, from Chennai, under the impression that THIS IS OUR STATE. Entrepreneurs from Andhra region pooled their entire resources into Hyderabad and surrounding districts to develop the same. Chandrababu naidu was instrumental in attracting Huge capital from outside Andhra Pradesh and India – into – especially Hyderabad – all under the impression that this is our state. Again, the current crop of selfish Telangana leaders were nowhere in sight then. In those days, they could not win even a score of seats even in Telangana region. This was the fact.

 But, subsequently under the weak rule of YSR and his successors, these selfish leaders started spreading canards about bias, favouritism and so on against Telangana. Then came the Sri Krishna Committee – which categorically proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Telangana got more allocations than the other two regions all along. But, People like KCR will always twist all facts out of shape to raise the bogey of bias, which is not true. If the Centre  could nail their untruths then itself – the present situation would not have arisen. Leaders like KCR and his coterie were asking even 10 years before that Andhra region born officials must leave Telangana totally. They were going to their houses and asking them to go. It was widely reported in news papers in those days. How much stress and tension does that create in the families of such low paid officials? Can a democratic state allow such things?

 It was YSR who allowed such things to happen. KCR is the one Politician in India with the most abusive tongue. He has no respect for any politician or any person for that matter. And the Centre is dealing with him and his Party! To complicate matters further, You have Politicians like the one who said on a Telugu TV channel that “we are not Indians, we are not Indians, we are not Indians..India annexed us forcibly”. I have heard it myself and could not believe that such people are the ones leading the so called Telangana agitation. India must know that the Centre is dealing with such Politicians. I do feel that the Centre and the BJP have not understood the implications of handing over the state to such politicians. 

With people like KCR and his party men, the crores of Andhras residing in Telangana region for decades feel absolutely Unsafe. 

The centre and BJP must also not forget that Akbaruddin Owaisi hails from this region and his hate talks were being wildly cheered by the followers sitting before him. The centre and BJP must listen to all his talks before giving Hyderabad to Telangana. Any other country would have taken severe action on Akbaruddin Owaisi. But, India?

The least that the Centre must do – is to make Hyderabad a Union territory and ask both the regions to develop their own capitals elsewhere. That will not be fair to Seemandhra people who actually developed Hyderabad. But, that will at least keep the scales even. Second, centre must not allow Telangana leaders to meddle with water resources, ore resources etc. I must tell that Telangana leaders are already telling that Iron Ore from Telangana must not go to Vizag steel plant. These are people who will not allow water, ore, or even air, if possible to Andhra Region – until Other Regions retaliate in the same way towards Telangana region. This is the genuine fear of the Seemandhra People based on the everyday talks of these Telangana leaders. These leaders never built a case for separation of Telanagana – except their Hate talks – because, in reality, there is no case. But, seemandhra people must think twice about their agitational methods.

 What they need to do INSTANTLY  and IMMEDIATELY  is – convene the Assembly, pass the resolution for a United State and send it to the centre. Instead, punishing their own people and others is devoid of all logic.

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TN POLICE NAB TERRORISTS AT AP TOWN - WHAT MEASURES TO TACKLE TERRORISM EFFECTIVELY

Sunday, October 06, 2013

NEWS – GOOD, BAD & SAD

There are always a few news that are heartening and invigorating. There are also always a lot of news which are depressing and demoralizing. Some news are – just not worth reading. Here are the Good, Bad and the Sad

1.  Excellent :TN EXTREMISTS WANTED FOR BID ON ADVANI HELD IN AP AFTER 10 HOUR OPERATIONS:-Puttur in southern AP was famous for ancient bone jointing methods. Even now, many people believe in the efficiency of these traditional Bone Jointers of Puttur. But, the proximity of Puttur to Tamilnadu makes it an ideal place for any terrorists to commit their heinous ACTS and flee easily outside Tamilnadu. The same thing happened  yesterday, when TN Police got info about the Terrorists hiding in Puttur. These Terrorists are wanted in case of attacks on several Hindu leaders, including Advani. The terrorists are posing as scrap dealers in Puttur. 3 Terrorists, Fakruddin,32, Bilal Malik,25, Panna Ismail,36 are arrested after a Huge operation involving the TN Police – helped by AP Govt. It is understood from News Reports that Islamic Terrorists Groups were regrouping and planning attacks on public figures and probably a temple as well. The terrorists at Puttur had fire arms and fought a gun battle also  before surrendering. They also used women and children as a shield against Police.  Even now, their family members, including mother, don’t believe that they can be terrorists. That shows, how Islamic terrorist groups operate – even without knowledge of their family members. In many earlier cases, a few were caught but were released for want of conclusive evidence. This is the problem with Terrorism and terrorists. If India wants to deal with Terrorism effectively, we need special Laws – and not ordinary laws and ordinary Court Processes. There will never be the so called CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE against terrorist attacks. Pakistan is hiding behind this spacious plea even in respect of the Mumbai Blasts. But, India can’t afford to have such archaic, ineffective, Laws, which endanger India from the terrorists. I therefore suggest the following methods to deal with terrorists :

(a)           First and Foremost, we need an All India based ANTI-TERRORIST SQUAD, NOT TAKING ORDERS FROM Political bosses, but acting Independently and reporting cases and actions taken, to Parliament through an Authority like Lok Pal, a judicial or quasi Judicial authority constituted for the purpose. If some Political boss is giving orders, like – deal with Muslim terrorists softly, differently etc – we can never, ever tackle terrorism on Indian Soil. There should be an unbiased, impartial Authority to deal with terrorism, but, they should be allowed to deal with terrorism strongly and independently.

(b)           There shall be no question of the Political Authority questioning them on their day-to-day operations like encounters, operations, killing on the spot, engaging in chase and catch, proactive operations and so on. The Lok Pal like Authority shall however report the progress of anti terrorist operations to a Joint committee of the Parliament , on monthly basis, and Parliament shall have authority to debate on the reports and give any guidelines for future operations as they may deem fit, without compromising on the Independence of the Anti Terrorist Squads.

(c)           The Squads shall have all Powers for Pro-active, preventive operations, including , where necessary, ENCOUNTERS, of  terrorists. There shall be no authority for any other authority like, say, CBI, for questioning their operations. It shall be the exclusive domain of the Lok Pal like authority constituted for the purpose. Parliament can, however, review the operations and suggest any guidelines for future.

(d)           Terrorism shall preferably include the Mafia operating in Mumbai and elsewhere, Sand/coal/Iron ore  mining Mafias in different states – and any other Mafias who terrorize General Public and regularly indulge in anti social, illegal operations of any kind. Even today, two persons were murdered for reporting about illegal sand mining. This is nothing but TERRORISM. Cases of People who are regularly involved in abducting women and children and carrying out trafficking in women and children must also come under Terrorism. These are all cases where the ordinary Police are a TOTAL FAILURE in almost every state.

(e)           But, Naxalism needs another specialist devoted group – with complete freedom of Action to root out Naxalism from the country. Naxalism for this purpose shall also include the terrorist Groups in the North east and other states as well.

(f)            These are my views. Of course, some Politicians won’t agree. Did they agree easily for barring criminal Politicians from Parliament and state legislatures? No. Did they implement Lok Pal Bill? No. As Lalu told on one occasion, why will they approve of a Lok Pal, which is dangerous for themselves! 

(g)           But, Country and people must rise above Politicians and insist on such Independent Anti-Terrorist operations. India must become a country where the ordinary citizen is not only Law abiding but is also fearless in his Lawful conduct.

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