Polaris Posts 11.2 Per Cent Decline in Q1 Net

New Delhi: Polaris Financial Technology (Polaris FT) on Wednesday posted an 11.2 per cent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 38.32 crore for the quarter ended June, 2014.

Polaris FT had registered a net profit of Rs 43.20 crore in the April-June quarter of fiscal year 2013-14, the Chennai-based IT firm said in a statement.

The company's revenue for the first quarter of fiscal year 2014-15 stood at Rs 600.03 crore as against Rs 566.80 crore in the year-ago period - an increase of 5.8 per cent.

"The challenge during the last quarter has been to strike a balance between investing for growth and managing costs," Polaris FT chief financial officer S Swaminathan said.

"We have ensured that we continued to generate cash, while ensuring investments to build the base required for each line of business to grow, particularly in the areas of sales and marketing."

The company was able to come out of the drag of exchange losses due to a more stable rupee and the hedging strategy of the company, he added.

"We did some rationalisation of engagements in the Services business, while our products business focused on building the sales and distribution network," Polaris FT CMD Arun Jain said.

Polaris FT, formerly known as Polaris Software Lab Group, posted Rs 455.35 crore in revenues from its services business. It added five new clients in the said quarter taking its active client base to 152.

Its products business (Intellect) saw revenues growing 24 per cent year-on-year to Rs 144.69 crore. It won 12 new deals in Q1 FY'15.

Intellect's first quarter revenues were distributed across geographies with Americas contributing 12 per cent, Europe 28 per cent, India 15 per cent and Rest of the World 45 per cent.

The company's cash and cash equivalents stood at Rs 660 crore as on June 30, 2014.

Shares in Polaris, on Wednesday, ended at Rs 214.50 apiece on the BSE, down 7.4 per cent from the previous close.