Rolta sees order pipeline of Rs 7000cr

KK Singh, CMD, Rolta India says that the 11.4-percent rise in PAT to Rs 70.39 crore and healthy order-book levels have allowed the company to increase its guidance from the earlier levels of 10-15 percent for the whole year. Going forward, Singh told CNBC-TV18, the company will focus on intellectual property.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18

Q: What are the highlights of your performance during this quarter?

A: This has been a good quarter for us. Our revenue has increased by almost 12 percent on a sequential basis and is at Rs 526 crore as compared to Rs 470 crore quarter-on-quarter. The EBITDA has increased by about 1.5 percent and has gone up 13 percent year –on- year. The profit-after-tax also went up by almost about 11.4 percent to Rs 70.39 crore versus Rs 63.21 crore on a sequential basis.

These positive results will allow us to increase our earlier guidance of 10-15 percent for the whole year for revenue as well as for profitability. We plan to increase revenue by 16 to 18 percent on a yearly basis and record a profit of over-15 percent.

Q: What are your EBITDA margins?

A: Our EBITDA margins are up this quarter by about 1.5 percent and on a year-on-year basis they are about 13 percent. But it has to be kept in mind that the EBITDA margins vary quarter-to-quarter depending on the kind of solutions we provide. Sometimes intellectual property (IP) rises in a quarter compared to others and therefore there is a fluctuation of 2-3 percent. But overall, the EBITDA margins are on the increase and that has been made evident by the results.

Q: What about the order-book? Can you explain the growth of your order book on a sequential basis because in the previous quarter it was up 3 percent quarter-on-quarter. How does that compare with this quarter?

A: The order book has been very healthy. And in this quarter, we have bagged very large orders such as the USD 31-million order from a US-based utility, a USD 12-million order in the UK and geospatial order orders worth USD 10 million from Africa and the Middle-East.

We have been also bagging a lot of large orders from the domestic market. In the engineering sector alone, we have orders worth more than Rs 30-40 crore. The order -book position has also improved to over- Rs 2,400 crore on backlog orders. The pipeline is very heavy with orders worth Rs 7,000 crore.

Q: What is your guidance for the next year?

A: As far the next year is concerned, we will try to do better.  We are quite hopeful that our strategy of being an IP-led company will be endorsed by larger IT companies as indicated by the Infosys CEO’s comment of IP being the lead concern for all IT companies.