Hinduja TMT was the subject of much attention today, rising 2.90% to Rs 249.80, after the company came out with a buoyant future outlook late yesterday.

By 10:45 IST, the Hinduja group software company notched up volumes of over 1.28 lakh shares on BSE. Hinduja TMT (HTMT) has now risen 72% from its 52-week low of Rs 145 on 11 April 2003.

Late yesterday, the company said that, considering the new contracts for the ITES business already signed and the projects in the pipeline, the company expects revenue to grow by about 60% with a net profit margin of 45% on total turnover for 2003-04.

Following the successful completion of the business process outsourcing (BPO) contract for claim processing with a major health care insurance company in the US, HTMT, during the year, has renewed its BPO contract for another two years with an option for further renewal of one year. The renewed contract is likely to yield approximately Rs 100 crore ($ 20 million) in revenues during this period.

Recently, Indusind Media & Communications, a Hinduja TMT company, announced that it entered into an agreement with Kudeiski SA, a listed company in Switzerland, for issuing up to 3% of its equity based on IMCL valuation of approximately US $ 500 million.

While the parameters of the valuation have already been worked out and agreed to with the assistance of the company's advisors Price WaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Corporate Finance Group and Amas Securities, the final valuation will be arrived at on completion of due diligence.

Nagaravision SA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kudeiski, will provide an exclusive conditional access solution (CAS) to encrypt and secure the digital pay TV services of IMCL and render turkey services for deployment of digital pay TV services. Nagravision is among the world's largest providers of secure access to pay TV services via more than 35 million decoder set top boxes worldwide.

The company unveiled its fourth quarter and full year results on Tuesday. For Q4 ended 31 March 2003, the company posted a marginal 1.5% fall in net profit to Rs 15.51 crore (Rs 15.74 crore) on a 28.5% increase in total income to Rs 32.12 crore (Rs 25 crore). The fall in net profit was due to the rise in total expenditure (by 90.35% to Rs 152.53 crore). This rise was mainly on account of direct costs and operational expenses as also due to staff costs.

For FY 2002-03, the company's net profit rose by 33% to Rs 62.03 crore (Rs 46.73 crore) on a 57% increase in total income to Rs 114.46 crore (Rs 72.93 crore). On a consolidated basis, for the year ended 31 March 2003, the company's net profit was Rs 58.31 crore (Rs 31.36 crore) on total income of Rs 216.78 crore (Rs 164.34 crore). The board proposed a dividend of 70% for FY 2002-03.

Hinduja TMT, as part of its IT/BPO portfolio, is also focusing on high-end applications like engineering design and R&D services. It has successfully completed pilots in engineering design software services for two companies in Europe - an automobile major and an engineering services company - and regular orders are likely to flow from them for onsite and offshore services.

As on 31 March 2003, the promoters held 71.25% stake in HTMT, while the public and institutions held 9.05% and 9.65%, respectively.