Dear Analyst,
It is my pleasure to highlight the business performance of the Sasken Group for the financial year (FY 2019-20), ending March 31, 2020.
We must point out that certain statements made here or those we make subsequently in response to your queries concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements. Please read the Safe Harbor clause in the second slide of our presentation for full details
Let me begin by walking you through our financials for Fiscal 2020. In Fiscal FY 2020, the consolidated revenues for the Sasken Group down over the previous fiscal and stood at ₹.492.22 crores. Consolidated Earnings before Interest and Tax for fiscal ‘20 were ₹.76.92 crores, a growth of 19.2% sequentially. Consolidated PAT for fiscal ‘20 was at ₹.78.83 crores, down 12.8 % over the previous fiscal. PAT margins for this fiscal were 16.1%, and the EBIT margin was at 15.6%. Consolidated earnings per share were ₹.48.57 for the full year. Cash and cash equivalents were approximately ₹.335.82 crores as of March 31, 2020.
I will now provide the key highlights for our business in the current quarter and full financial year FY 20
Our focus remains to grow business and strengthen engagements with our strategic accounts. These key customers are among the market leaders in their respective segments, and as before repose their confidence in working with us. We diligently pursue more scalable and long term business contracts, which, given the nature of our business, takes time to fruition. During the year, we have made progress in both our product engineering and digital business. We are engaged in providing a range of services spanning from new product introduction to maintenance of current & legacy systems. We have strengthened our solution portfolio across product & digital services by well-defined offerings in the areas of automotive, semiconductor, enterprise security, industrial, transportation, and communication & devices sectors. These investments will continue to serve us in the forthcoming year and the foreseeable future.
In the current quarter, we have had some headwinds consequent to which there has been a drop in revenues. Despite the decline in revenues, operating performance has improved due to prudent cost management. However, during the current year, our effective tax rates have gone up due to a combination of reasons including the write-down in our deferred tax assets, reduction in enacted income tax rates to 22% plus surcharge and cess in Sep 2019. In March, there has been an impact on the stock markets on account of the pandemic. The mark to market losses on our investments led to a decline in other income by 22% over the previous financial year. These factors have contributed to a decrease in PAT compared to the earlier year.
The bear grip of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global business. Your Company was proactive and implemented business continuity measures keeping in mind our resolve to serve our customers as well as ensure the safety of all employees. Our mature engineering development processes have ensured that we successfully transition to work from home without missing any milestones.
We have seen some early signals of a possible impact on business volumes and are also likely to see rate pressures from certain quarters. Customers are cautious both in terms of awarding new business and negotiating better terms for existing contracts. Currently, we are in dialogue with our existing and prospective customers to mitigate these risks to the best of our abilities.
We are mindful that there needs to be disciplined and robust management of costs. As of now, we have not taken any decision concerning either salary revisions or right-sizing our employee count. On a similar note, we have yet to decide if we will go ahead with promotions in the current year. We continuously monitor the situation and will take firm and decisive steps to manage our costs as efficiently as possible.
Dividend
The Board of Directors at its meeting held on March 9, 2020, had declared 2nd interim dividend of ₹.15 (150%) and a Special Dividend of ₹.35 (350%) per equity share, aggregating to ₹.50 (500%) per share. With the earlier declaration of ₹.5 (50%) in November 2019, the total dividend declared for the financial year 2019-20 aggregates to ₹.55 (550%) per equity share of ₹.10 each. We thus maintain the uninterrupted record of paying a dividend since our inception.
We thank you for your interest in Sasken and your continued support. My team and I are committed to doing our best to serve the interests of all our stakeholders.
Rajiv C Mody
Chairman, Managing Director, and CEO
Sasken Technologies Limited
