Happiest Minds lowers FY24 organic growth guidance to 12% from 15-20%

Headwinds in the organic business over the last six months have led Happiest Minds to lower its full-year growth guidance for the business to 12% from 15-20% projected earlier, said Venkatraman Narayanan, MD & CFO of the company in a post-earnings chat with CNBC-TV18.

The company was earlier expecting a 25% growth in the overall business including organic growth plus potential acquisitions.

“When we started the year, we had a couple of larger names in our acquisition pipeline, we had taken that into account while coming out with guidance. But over the last six months, the organic bit of the business has been facing some bit of headwinds, and so basis that we came back and looked at Q3 and Q4. That's the basis we have now said that our organic growth would be about 12%,” he said.

The company's consolidated profit for the September quarter fell 1.6% to ₹58.46 crore from the year-ago period. Revenue was up 19.3 year-on-year (YoY) ₹428.83 crore.

“If you look at the half year, over half year, in constant currency we have done about 12.7%. So we have to do a similar kind of repeat over Q3 and Q4 to meet that number of 12% that we have out there,” Narayanan said.

The information technology firm has set October 30 as the record date for the Rs 2.5 interim dividend declared for FY23. The dividend would be paid on and after November 13, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Joseph Anantharaju, Executive Vice Chairman of the company talked about ongoing discussions with two companies for possible mergers and acquisitions.

Narayanan also said the company has not faced any deal cancellations, nor have clients requested pricing discounts.

Happiest Minds Technologies has been one of the most successful IPOs of over Rs 500 crore since its debut on the bourses in September 2020. The stock is now nearly 5 times its IPO issue price of ₹166. These returns are despite the stock having corrected over 20% from its 52-week high of ₹1,136.

The company's shares were trading 2.38% lower at Rs 840.20 per share on BSE today. In the last month, the stock has lost over 9%.