The country’s top software company, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), on Wednesday reported a 8.7 per cent jump in its net profit at Rs 11,342 crore in the quarter ended September, compared to Rs 10,431 crore in the year-ago period. The board of directors approved a proposal to buyback up to 4.09 crore equity shares of the company for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 17,000 crore and also announced a dividend of Rs 9 per equity share. The buyback is approved at a price of Rs 4,150 per equity share, a 15 per cent premium over Wednesday’s closing price. A buyback or share repurchase is when a listed company buys its own shares from existing shareholders. The process reduces the number of outstanding shares in the open market over a period which can lead to better valuation and earning per share (EPS). The IT company reported a growth of 7.9 per cent in consolidated revenue to Rs 59,692 crore in the July-September quarter compared to Rs 55,309 crore in the same period of fiscal 2023. “Strong deal momentum delivered us a very large order book in Q2 – our second highest TCV (total contract value) ever in a quarter, and good pipeline. The resilience of demand for our services, our clients’ willingness to commit to long tenure programs and their continued appetite for experimentation with Gen AI and other new technologies give us confidence in our longer-term growth prospects,” the company’s Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director K Krithivasan said. In industries, growth in the second quarter was led by the energy, resources and utilities vertical which rose 14.8 per cent, manufacturing which grew 5.8 per cent and life sciences and healthcare which grew 5 per cent. The Consumer Business Group (CBG) grew 1 per cent, BFSI grew by (-) 0.5%, communications & media grew (-) 2.1 per cent and technology & services grew (-) 2.2 per cent. Among major markets, the United Kingdom led with 10.7 per cent growth; North America grew 0.1 per cent and Continental Europe grew 1.3 per cent. In emerging markets, Middle East & Africa grew 15.9 per cent, Latin America grew 13.1 per cent, Asia Pacific grew 4.1 per cent and India grew 3.9 per cent. The company’s Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director N Ganapathy Subramaniam said, “We continue to make investments in our people and new technologies. We now have a 100,000-strong pool of Gen-AI ready consultants and prompt-engineers who are engaged in hundreds of Gen-AI projects for our clients across segments.” During the quarter, BSNL awarded TCS the project to integrate and deploy a modern, indigenous pan-India 4G and 5G mobile network, he said. The company’s scrip ended at Rs 3,610.2 apiece, down 0.52 per cent on Wednesday.
