The Hindu Business Line : iGATE Global hopeful of turnaround this fiscal

IGATE Global Solutions Ltd has reported a net loss of Rs 7.86 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, as against a net profit of Rs 10.26 crore in the corresponding period last year, after it took a hit of one time charges relating to acquisition and restructuring.

Revenues for the fourth quarter of FY04 stood at Rs 138.1 crore as compared to Rs 142.03 crore in corresponding previous year.

On consolidated basis, iGATE reported a net loss of Rs 6.77 crore for the year-ended March 2004, compared to a net profit of Rs 28.35 crore in the previous year. Revenues for the year grew by 35.5 per cent to Rs 570 crore.

``We achieved an operating profit in Q4 as compared to Q3. The losses are basically due to the sub-critical operations of the BPO and contact centre businesses acquired during the year and restructuring and integration charges,'' said Mr Phaneesh Murthy, CEO, iGATE Global.

``We are focused on increasing our revenue and are improving our operational efficiency. The market is moving towards smaller deal sizes and this favours players like us with higher intellectual capital. We expect a turn around in fiscal 2004-05, most probably from the July-August-September quarter onwards,'' Mr Murthy told Business Line.

iGATE added eight new clients during the quarter of which five are Fortune 1000 companies including Charles Schwab.

``We expect Charles Schwab to emerge as one of the largest accounts over the next few quarters,'' Mr Murthy said adding that the company was seeing good traction from existing clients such as Philip Morris and ING among others.

Mr Murthy sees a stable pricing environment going ahead. ``There will not be any changes on the pricing front unless the demand surges,'' he said.

iGATE expects to add about 1,200 people over the next 12 months, he said. At present, the company had employee strength of over 3,100. It added over 400 people mainly coming through acquisitions. iGATE effected an average salary hike of 15 per cent for its employees in India.

iGATE acquired and merged back-office firm Quintant Services in January this year. It is also acquiring Symphoni Interactive and Redbrigade Ltd, which provides IT-related services, from parent iGATE Corp. ``We are planning to bring all our BPO operations - Quintant and iGATE Global Proces Outsourcing Ltd under one umbrella of iGATE Global Solutions to have a common front-end,'' Mr Murthy said.