The Hindu Business Line : Hexaware reports Rs 81-cr loss on forex deals

Sharp decline: Mr Atul Nishar (right), Executive Chairman, Hexaware Technologies Ltd, and Mr Rusi Brij, CEO & Vice-Chairman, at a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday. Hexaware has reported a net loss for the December quarter from a one-time foreign exchange trading loss of Rs 103 crore. —

Our Bureau

Advertisement

Mumbai, Feb. 21 Hexaware Technologies, which had suffered a severe blow recently on account of certain unauthorised forex derivative deals entered into by a company official, on Wednesday reported a Rs 81-crore loss for the quarter ended December 2007.

The company had sacked the employee who was a part of the internal treasury team and took the entire loss into its books for the quarter itself.

Unwinding these transactions in a single quarter resulted in the company taking a hit of about Rs 103 crore, Mr Rusi Brij, Vice Chairman and CEO, Hexaware Technologies, said at a news conference on Thursday.

Hexaware had discovered and cancelled the 11 unauthorised forex deals involving options that were entered on the company’s behalf by a senior official. These transactions, which were against the company policy, were actively concealed from the board of directors.

Revenues up

The company reported a net loss of Rs 81 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2007 as against a net profit of Rs 33.7 crore during the corresponding year-ago quarter. Gross revenues rose by 7.9 per cent to Rs 259.1 crore for the December quarter from Rs 240.2 crore in the same quarter of the previous year.

To ensure that a similar fiasco does not happen in future, the company has reiterated that it will only go in for plain-vanilla forward contracts.