Press Releases
Friday
January 31, 2003
Rolta Fourth Quarter (December 2002) Net Profit at Rs. 15.61 Crores
Mumbai, January 31, 2003: Rolta India Limited, India's premier CAD/CAM/GIS solutions and services provider, has announced un-audited results for quarter ended December 31, 2002. Total income for the quarter is Rs. 51.69 Crores against a total income of Rs. 73.62 Crores during the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The net profit for the quarter ended December 31, 2002 is Rs. 15.61 Crores against a net profit of Rs 15.50 Crores during the same quarter of 2001.
The total income for the twelve months of 2002 works out to Rs. 262.65 Crores as compared to the total income of Rs. 301.46 Crores during the corresponding period of last year. Net Sales (exclusive of inter divisional sales) have grown during the twelve months of 2002 by 12.35% over that of the corresponding period of 2001. Net profit for the four quarters of 2002 is Rs. 92.35 Crores as against Rs. 105.45 Crores for the four quarters of 2001. Nevertheless, the cash profits for the twelve months period ending December 2002 are higher by Rs. 2.83 Crores as compared to the cash profits of the corresponding period of 2001. The Net profit for the period is lower mainly on account of enhanced provisions made for depreciation. The Company has been able to sustain its profitability in spite of squeeze on pricing and pressure on top line.
The Company has initiated business, infrastructural, financial and managerial restructuring for accelerating its future growth. To achieve this objective, the Company is taking major steps that should be completed within the next five-six months. A brief of the various initiatives undertaken is given below.
1. The Company has set up a wholly owned subsidiary in The United Kingdom - Rolta UK Limited to strengthen its operations in Europe and exploit the emerging opportunities. To take advantage of a similar operating environment as India, viz. the English language, a comparable legal system and easier access, the Company has made Rolta UK its European headquarters, headed by a full-time Managing Director Mr. Mark Edwards. He will be the common Managing Director for Rolta UK Limited, Rolta Saudi Arabia and Rolta Middle East. This subsidiary has recently become functional, and further steps are now being undertaken to fully operationalize this Company in the next few months. The subsidiaries incorporated earlier in Netherlands and Germany will now become subsidiaries of Rolta UK Limited and also operationally report to this Company. Hence, Rolta UK Limited will become the holding company of all Rolta operations in Europe. The Middle East operations, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, will continue to be run by the respective subsidiary companies i.e. Rolta Saudi Arabia Limited and Rolta Middle East Limited, each headed by a Country Manager, who will also now report to the common Managing Director Mr. Mark Edwards in UK . The US subsidiary has been strengthened with infusion of additional capital and setting up of a world-class Engineering S/W & e-Services Center. This subsidiary will now focus on and oversee business in the whole of American region, comprising of Canada, U.S. and the various countries in South America. The Canadian subsidiary will continue to report to and operate as an arm of this Company. A complete reorganization of people at the Management level has been recently completed at Rolta, US, with redefined focus and accountability, and the same is expected to start giving results in the coming few months. Steps are also being undertaken to establish a subsidiary in Australia to handle the Asia Pacific market in a more proactive fashion.
2. To provide additional focus in the Indian Operations and to exploit the various experiences and strengths within the Company, the concept of Strategic Business Units (SBU) is being introduced. Three SBUs are being planned i.e. i) GeoEngineering/GIS, ii) Engineering Design Automation & iii) eBusiness solutions. The GeoEngineering/GIS SBU will provide solutions & services in the area of GeoEngineering and Geographic Information Systems. Complete solutions and services will be provided within the Indian market, while specialized services will be offered worldwide. The Engineering Design Automation SBU will be focused towards providing solutions and services in the areas of Plant & Mechanical Engineering. Comprehensive solutions will be offered in India, while specialized services provided, worldwide. During the course of the next few months, capabilities for providing Design & Detailed Engineering will also be added to expand the business opportunities for this SBU. The Company is proposing to expand its Internet & eBusiness operations by setting up a dedicated SBU for eBusiness solutions. General/Business software development is being incorporated as a structured business activity for the first time, in addition to the engineering S/W development being done from earlier. The company has already taken active steps for achieving SEI - CMM Level 5 certification, within the next few months. Further, new business lines viz. Smart Cards, Data Warehousing/ Mining and complex Enterprise Application Integration have been added, which are expected to add to this SBU's growth.
3. To augment its infrastructure, the Company is adding large facilities in Mumbai, which are targeted for completion by June 2003. This expansion program will enhance the existing resources significantly and enable the Company to expand for the next few years without any infrastructure constraints. With the completion of this planned expansion phase, the Company will be better positioned to exploit and accelerate its growth opportunities during the coming few years. The Company has also initiated a debt-restructuring program to take advantage of the falling interest rates in the global financial markets. Accordingly, the Company is replacing the existing higher cost borrowings with foreign currency loans, at internationally competitive rates.
4. To give shape and implement the above, a managerial restructuring has also happened/is happening. Mr. Mark Edwards has moved from Rolta Saudi to UK and has been made common Managing Director of Rolta UK Limited, Rolta Saudi Arabia and Rolta Middle East FZ-LLC. Mr. Lakshmi Jayanthi has moved from Rolta Europe to Rolta UK, while both Rolta Saudi and Rolta Middle East have new Country Managers in the shape of Mr. Peter Scorer (promoted internally) and Mr. Paul Alley (promoted and transferred from Saudi to Dubai) respectively. In Rolta International Inc. US, Mr. Dave Slighting, who has been appointed as a Sr. VP, has replaced Mr. Allan Wilson, Executive VP & Board Member. The Company is planning to broad base its Board of Directors, by inducting additional, independent & leading professionals. The Company is also in the process of similarly expanding the Boards of its International subsidiaries and also appointing Heads of the independent SBUs brought out earlier.
All the measures mentioned above were reviewed by the Board in it's meeting on January 31, 2003. It was decided that these initiatives need be completed in the next few months, in a time-bound fashion, in the current financial year itself, so that the company can derive the full benefit of this comprehensive restructuring from next year onwards. Hence, the Financial Year of the Company is extended from December 31, 2002 till June 30, 2003. This would mean that the accounting year would be for a period of 18 months viz. January 01, 2002 up to June 30, 2003.
Company Background: Rolta is an Indian multinational organization well equipped to provide knowledge-based software & IT-enabled services to customers across the world. By judiciously combining resources from worldwide facilities, Rolta is able to meet customer needs cost- effectively. Since 1982, Rolta has been a pioneer in computer graphics, mapping and engineering software. The company has consistently been ranked as India's #1 CAD/CAM/GIS solution provider and is considered amongst the top Geo-Engineering software conversion service vendors worldwide. Rolta offers end-to-end solutions and services for Geo-engineering, Plant Design Automation, Mechanical Design Automation and Product Lifecycle Management. The company also offers value added solutions and services for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) that includes integrating & web-enabling Engineering & Business applications, Smart Cards, eSecurity and Data-Warehousing/Mining. Forbes Global has ranked Rolta for the second year in a row, amongst the 200 Best Companies in the World (having sales of less than US $ 1 Billion). Rolta has also been placed on the First 250 list of the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Asia-Pacific Technology Fast 500 program.
For additional information
Mr.V L Ganesh
Director-Finance & Chief Financial Officer
Rolta India Limited
Telephone: 2832 6666 / 2826 2222 Extn: 1501
E-mail: vlganesh@rolta.com
www.rolta.com
