LTI net profit increases 31% to Rs 378.5 cr in March quarter

Mid-size IT firm, LTI Thursday reported a 31 per cent growth in its March quarter net at Rs 378.5 crore on a faster revenue accretion. The city-headquartered company, the information technology arm of engineering giant Larsen & Toubro, reported a 36.2 per cent jump in post-tax profit at Rs 1,515 crore in FY19.

The overall revenues for the quarter grew 24.2 per cent to Rs 2,486 crore, while the same for the entire fiscal grew 29.3 per cent to Rs 9,445 crore. The company's operating margin, however, declined 1.40 per cent to 17.7 per cent as against the 19.1 per cent in the preceding quarter.

Its chief executive and managing director Sanjay Jalona explained this was due to extra hiring during the quarter and the investments which go into the same. The utilisation levels for the company were at a very high level, which was getting almost "unhealthy", he told PTI.

It hired a set of 656 people during the reporting period to take the total employee base to 28,169 people, while the overall utilisation went down to 80.1 per cent from 82.1 per cent in the year-ago period. Contribution of the new-age digital revenues stood at 37.9 per cent of the overall revenue pie.

Jalona said the demand environment is healthy for the next fiscal and added that the total contract value closed during the quarter stood at a healthy USD 100 million. When asked about its parent's 21 per cent stake buy in almost equal sized rival Mindtree and how it would change working, especially with the possibilities of L&T increasing the stake, Jalona said, "Nothing changes for LTI, we continue chasing business in the same way as we used to especially the large deals." The LTI scrip closed 0.48 per cent up at Rs 1,721.55 a piece on the BSE, as against a 0.13 per cent correction on the benchmark.