The Hindu Business Line : Infosys’ Mysore centre: ‘Largest corporate investment in education infrastructure’

New horizons: (From left) Mr Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors, Infosys; Mr N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor and non-executive chairman; Mr Omkar Goswami, Independent Director; and Mr S. Gopalakrishnan, CEO and Managing Director; at the 27th Annual General Meeting in Bangalore on Saturday.

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Bangalore, June 14 Infosys Technologies said its investment on expanding its Global Education Centre in Mysore is at an “advanced stage of completion.” When completed, it “will be the largest corporate investment (Rs 1,650 crore) in educational infrastructure in India and one of the largest globally,” said Mr N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys, at the 27th annual general meeting on Saturday.

Mr Murthy said when completed, the centre will have the capacity to train over 13,000 graduates in a single sitting with over 500 faculty rooms and 10,300 residential rooms. “The scale of investment is a testimony to our willingness to invest in future business needs. We have also increased the scope of our certification programme and our training during the year. Investment in training is a huge necessity for knowledge-based corporations,” he said.

Mr Murthy highlighted the efforts of the company in hiring and training students from the best universities in the world at its Mysore centre. “We trained and inducted the first batch of graduates from the UK during the fiscal year. We continued our programme of hiring and training graduates from the US. We are examining the possibility of expanding this programme to many more countries,” he said.

Mr Murthy said the company was “encouraged by the European Union’s move to open up its market to the movement of natural persons by creating new visa types that will enable the freer flow of high-end talent.”

Revenue growth

Mr V. Balakrishnan, Chief Financial Officer, said although the rupee appreciation impacted revenue growth, the company’s revenues crossed $4 billion in fiscal 2008, at a growth of 35 per cent in dollar terms. He said the company “still maintained its margins” as net profit crossed $1 billion in fiscal 2008. Infosys, Mr Balakrishnan said, managed to “reduce the impact of rupee appreciation through active hedging.”

The company, he said, added 170 new clients and 33,177 employees during the year.

Infosys expanded its business in Europe in an attempt to minimise currency risk in business. It also extended the geographical footprint in India, West Asia, Africa, Canada and Japan.

Mr Balakrishnan said the company was also making significant investments in geographies such as China and Mexico, and in services such as consulting. “We are still in the investment phase and still making losses in these countries. It will take time to break even. We hope consulting will break even this year.”

Guidance for 2009

The road ahead looks good for the company, he said, giving a revenue guidance of Rs 19,894-20,214 crore for fiscal 2009, at a year-on-year growth of 19.2-21.1 per cent. The projected earnings per share is Rs 92.32-93.92 at a year-on-year growth of 16.3-18.3 per cent.

The board of directors has decided to increase the dividend payout ratio from ‘up to 20 per cent’ to ‘up to 30 per cent’ of net profits from fiscal 2009. The board also approved the decision to pay a special dividend of Rs 20 a share. Along with the interim and final dividends of Rs 6 a share and Rs 7.25 a share, the total dividend is Rs 33.25 a share, amounting to a payout of Rs 1,902 crore.

The re-appointment of Mr Nandan Nilekani, who retires by rotation, as Director of the board, was also approved. He continues to be the Co-Chairman of the board.

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Infosys’ Mysore centre: ‘Largest corporate investment in education infrastructure’