Quess Corp, the Bengaluru-based business services provider, could well be the silver lining in India's layoff cloud that is hitting IT company employees in a big way. The 10-year-old firm ended up recruiting 36,700 employees during 2016-17 to take its headcount to 1,59,700 as of March 31, 2017.
The hiring dwarfs the recruitment during the financial year by the three IT services companies — TCS, Infosys and Wipro. TCS hired 33,380 employees, Infosys 6,320 and Wipro 8,650, according to the respective regulatory filings of the three firms.
No wonder, shares of Quess Corp are up (at Rs. 825) despite markets trading in the red due to negative sentiments prevailing across global stock markets.
The company had come out with its initial public offering (IPO) last year that was oversubscribed 144 times. The stock listed at 57 percent premium to the issue price of Rs. 317.
For 2016-17, Quess Corp's net profit rose 39.8 percent to Rs. 113.5 crore YoY, while revenues increased 21 percent to Rs. 4,157 crore. In the previous fiscal, net profit and revenues stood at Rs. 81 crore and Rs. 3,435 crore, respectively.
"We are pleased with our industry leading financial results for FY17. On the back of strong topline growth, we expanded margins by 96 bps and significantly improved cash generation. We believe we are well positioned to leverage opportunities in a growing Indian market and to opportunistically make investments in international markets and related areas of Quess' operations," Ajit Issac, CMD and CEO of the company, said in a statement.
The company also made a slew of acquisitions during the year. "Quess announced 6 acquisitions and investments in FY17 with all the transactions closing happening in Q3 and Q4 (with exception to MIS acquisition, which is expected to close in Q2 FY18). The financial results of FY17 are not reflective of these acquisitions. It is expected that the financial consolidation of these acquisitions will commence in full form in FY18," the company said.
Quess Corp has 65 offices across 34 cities in India, apart from operations in North America, the Middle East and South East Asia, serving about 1300 customers across 4 segments.
