Nucleus Software has come out with its quarterly results. The software company's revenues grew 10.8% QoQ despite rupee appreciation.

It has a forex cover of $22 million at Rs 41.62 per dollar, said Nucleus Software's management. Further on, the company said that it has added five new clients.

It said that it continues to look at Japan very aggressively. It has orders worth Rs 289 crore in hand. And, the orders are to be executed over a period of 2-3 years.

Excerpts from the exclusive interview with Vishnu R Dusad:

Q: Walk us through the performance of each one of your verticals this quarter and how are you forecasting the rest of the financial year in the light of Rupee appreciation?

A: We’ve had a very solid quarter once again demonstrating the strength of our business model as well as resilience in the light of what is happening to the USD and other currencies. We have had a QoQ growth of top line by 10.8% and bottom line has grown by 2.84% and we are very confident about rest of the year and years to come because of the fundamentals of our business modal, which is intellectual property led solutions for our banking and financial services customers.

Q:  What’s been your forward cover for the currency?

A: We have around USD 22 million worth of forward cover as of today

Q: At what rate did you take this forward cover at? And what have you be looking at doing in terms of hedging against the currency for the remaining part of the year?

A:  We have USD 22 million worth of covers at an average of Rs 41.63

And we will continue to hedge aggressively to ensure that our financial do not get substantially because of the currency fluctuations. 

Q: What’s been the revenue additions in terms of your top five clients?

A: It is in the similar range, which is around 62%.

Q: How much client addition and employee addition have you witness this quarter?

A: We have added 5 new clients.

Q: You looking at Japan aggressively at this point of time, to tap contracts from there?

A: Yes, we continue to look at Japan very aggressively because as we had mentioned earlier, the second biggest finance company is implementing our solution there and number of other player in that market are looking at our solutions very closely. We are very confident that the number of other players will be implementing our solutions

Q: What deal sizes are you gunning for at this point of time, whether it is from Japan as a geography or in terms of enhancements to your current order book?

A: Japanese Consumers Finance industries organized top ten who have similar size of portfolio, so we’ve would look at atleast orders of similar size as and when they start coming in.           

Q: What is your order book equivalent to at this point in time?

A: We have Rs 289 crore worth of orders at this point of time.

Q: Executable over?

A: This would be executed over the next two to three years.

Q: Leave us with what we can expect in terms of an FY08 margin picture because as we understand the rupee is going to be factored in, in your guidance and also you are looking at a sizable chunk of salary hikes in FY08?

A: That is right. However, as a policy we do not give any guidance, and we continue to be bullish on both topline as well as bottomline for FY08.

Q: Can we extrapolate your first quarter performance on the topline as well as on the bottomline for the entire financial year?

A: You may like to look at it that way.