BENGALURU: Ending a controversial financial quarter, Infosys has seen a QoQ decline of 2.8 percent in its net profit at Rs 3,603 crore for the quarter ended March 31.
The results for the same were announced here on Thursday. According to the company's official statement, while there was a QoQ decline in the net profit, there was a 0.2 percent growth YoY of the same.
The operating profit and revenues also saw a fall of 2.8 percent QoQ and 0.9 percent QoQ respectively. While the revenues saw a growth of 3.4 percent YoY, the operating profit came down by 0.2 percent.
The company has been busy firefighting conflict of interest between the founders and the management, with Infosys Co-founder NR Narayana Murthy repeatedly taking objection to several measures implemented by the management.
This included steep hikes given to CEO Vishal Sikka and others holding top position in the company. Murthy has not minced words in openly expressing his concerns about the administration.
Meanwhile, with speculations having been rife on Infosys share buyback, the company has now officially indicated that it's likely to go for a share buyback in 2018. Ahead of this and earlier this month, the company had amended the Articles of Association introducing a provision for share buyback.
In its official statement on Thursday, Infosys said the company's board had decided that an amount of Rs 13,000 crore would be paid out to shareholders during FY 2018.
Also, in a revision of the existing policy of paying dividends up to 50 percent of post-tax profits of the financial year, it was likely to pay out up to 70 percent of free cash flow of the corresponding financial year, the company stated, indicating that this payout could include dividend and/ or share buyback.
As for the financial year 2017, the board has announced a final dividend of Rs 14.75 per share summing up to Rs 4,078 crore. The aggregate dividend for the financial year 2017 (including an interim dividend of Rs11 per share) results in total payout of Rs 7,119 crore. This is 49.6 percent of the post-tax profits and 63.0 percent of free cash flow for Financial Year 2017, the company stated.
New appointment
In its board meeting held April 13, 2017, the company has appointed independent director Ravi Venkatesan, as co-chairman of the board.