Mastek profit plummets 58 pc

Mastek profit plummets 58 pc
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU

MUMBAI, JAN 12: At a time when most of the infotech companies in India are announcing 100 per cent plus growth in net profits, here’s one company which has showed a steep fall in profits.

The Mastek Group has announced a net profit of Rs 3.01 crore for the second quarter ended 31 December 2000. The net profit has registered a 58 per cent decline over the corresponding period last year. Profit for the second quarter ended December 31, 1999 stood at Rs 7.21 crore. The company’s total income stands at Rs 66.89 crore for the second quarter registering an increase of 10% over Rs 60.75 crore for the corresponding quarter in the previous year. Revenue for the six month period ending Dec 31, 2000, was Rs 135.43 crore, an increase of 11 per cent over Rs 121.59 crore for the corresponding period in the previous year. The net profit for the current six month period stood at Rs 11.59 crore.

The decline in net profit has been attributed by the company to a 19 per cent decline in the US revenues, a provision of Rs 1.06 crore made against doubtful receivables from a dotcom customer and a charge of Rs 2.04 crore in respect of the ESOPs granted to the employees of its subsidiaries.

The Group’s international revenues for the second quarter was Rs 132.44 crore; an increase of 12 per cent over the corresponding period last year, which was led by a growth of 59 per cent in the European and Asia Pacific operations. During the second quarter of the 2001 fiscal, front end solutions and e-commerce soluions accounted for 41% of the Group revenues.

During the quarter, Mastek added 15 new customers, prominent among them are NCR and PCS Wireless. The Group’s repeat business stood at 97 per cent.Mastek has joined hands with Microsoft on their .NET initiative and is one of the 50 oragnisations, worldwide, to partner Microsoft for this project. The stock opened at Rs 219.80, reached a high of Rs 229.90 and closed at Rs 218.25 on the BSE on Friday. The scrip recorded a low of Rs 215.30 on the bourses. The trading volume at BSE was 1.52 lakh shares at the Mastek counter.

HDFC Bank net up

MUMBAI:HDFC Bank has announced a net-profit of Rs 53.72 crore for quarter ended December 31, 2000, up by 90.70 per cent from the Rs 28.17 crore from the comparable quarter in the previous fiscal. Total income for the quarter ended December 31, 2000 was Rs 372 crore (Rs 194 crore). Total expenditure stood at Rs 274 crore (Rs 139 crore). Total deposits stood at Rs 11,250 crore (5,080 crore). “I had expected the net profit to rise by 70 to 80 percent because of the merger. But going forward, I don’t think the bank can sustain such a growth rate in the next financial year,” said Manish Karwa, a banking analyst at Pranav Securities.