Rising adoption of smartphones, high internet speed and social distancing (due to Covid-19) has changed consumer behaviour. Consumers now prefer to transact (buy a product) virtually over the smartphone via an app instead of physical transaction. This has led to virtualisation of business models. In addition, to keep business up and running in a work from home scenario, technology is gaining traction. As a result, new age technologies like cybersecurity (to protect business from work from home scenario), app development (to help customer transact virtually) and Cloud (to enable...

Background: Zensar is a leading digital solutions and technology services company that specialises in partnering with global organisations across industries on their Digital Transformation journey. A technology partner of choice, backed by strong track-record of innovation; credible investment in Digital solutions; assertion of commitment to client's success, Zensar's comprehensive range of digital and technology services and solutions enable its customers to achieve new thresholds of business performance. Zensar, with its experience in delivering excellence and superior client satisfaction through myriad technology solutions, is uniquely positioned to help them surpass challenges around running their existing business most efficiently, helping in their legacy transformation, and planning for business expansion...

Zensar reported Q2 FY21 results much in line with expectations. Revenue for the period of Q2 FY21 stood at Rs. 979 cr decline by 1.2% QoQ. Operating margin reported a strong growth of 340bps and stood at 18.8%. Net income grew by 21.7% QoQ and stood at Rs. 89.2 cr.

While Zensar's (ZENT) 2QFY21 revenue performance impacted by restructuring at its top client was in line with our expectation, it was meaningfully below growth seen at its mid-cap peers. With the drag in top...

The company expects weakness in the top client to continue in the next two quarters. Coupled with a significant dip in H1FY21 & sale of third party maintenance segment, we expect FY21E revenues to decline 12.0% YoY. In the longer term, we expect the company to register healthy growth in core revenues (i.e. excluding third party maintenance revenues) mainly led by improving order book (increased 16.7% QoQ in Q2FY21), deal pipeline (US$1.5 billion), net new wins and conversion ratio. This, coupled with bottoming out of retail vertical, improvement in cloud revenues and ramp...

Background: Zensar is a leading digital solutions and technology services company that specialises in partnering with global organisations across industries on their Digital Transformation journey. A technology partner of choice, backed by strong track-record of innovation; credible investment in Digital solutions; assertion of commitment to client's success, Zensar's comprehensive range of digital and technology services and solutions enable its customers to achieve new thresholds of business performance. Zensar, with its experience in delivering excellence and superior client satisfaction through myriad technology solutions, is uniquely positioned to help them surpass challenges around running their existing business most efficiently, helping in their legacy transformation, and planning for business expansion...

Zensar reported better than expected results in Q1 FY21. Revenue for the period of Q1 FY21 stood at Rs. 991 cr decline by 2.6% QoQ and 4.8%QoQ in CC terms. Operating margin reported a growth of 11bps and stood at 9.9% aided mainly by INR depreciation, lower utilization.

Commentary around defending margins, healthy deal wins (USD150m), and a robust We upgrade our EPS estimate for FY21/FY22E by 5%/0% as we adjust our revenue growth assumptions and margin trajectory post the beat during the In 1QFY21, revenue (USD) / EBIT (INR) / PAT decreased by 15%/13%/7% YoY v/s our estimate of 17%/32%/30% YoY. The USD1.5b deal pipeline (v/s USD1b in 4QFY20) remains healthy, with robust demand in Cloud and Infrastructure Services and Digital Application Across verticals, Retail is expected to stabilize by 2QFY21 and grow in 2HFY21. We value the stock at ~10x FY22E 1Q revenue was impacted as clients ramped-down some projects as part of their immediate cost-control initiatives in response to COVID-19. Decline was The USD1.5b deal pipeline (v/s USD1b in 4QFY20) remains healthy, with robust demand in Cloud and Infrastructure Services and Digital Application Services. In 1QFY21, revenue (USD) / EBIT (INR) / PAT decreased by 15%/13%/7% YoY v/s Revenue decline of 4.8% QoQ (CC) was lower than our expectations.

The company saw a healthy improvement in its deal TCV (up 36% QOQ) and has healthy deal pipeline of US$1.5 billion. Also, Zensar's hi tech (46% of revenues) vertical saw an improvement of 3.5% QoQ (in CC terms) in the quarter, which is expected to further improve in coming quarters. This coupled with bottoming out of retail vertical, improvement in cloud revenues and ramp up of projects will lead to healthy improvement in revenues on coming quarters. The company has also hired Nachiketa Mitra (from cognizant) to boost its financial service (~26.6% of revenues) segment...

Background: Zensar Technologies is an RPG Group company, with end-to-end services from IT development to business process outsourcing. The company's business is spread across USA, Europe and Africa with around 308 active clients. The company's portfolio focuses on Hi-tech & manufacturing, retail and BFSI sectors. Zensar provides Analytics, Cloud & infrastructure, enterprise applications, digital experience and service line transformation...

Retail, manufacturing sector to impact near term revenues Zensar expects retail (that contributes ~15% of revenues) to be severely impacted in the near term. In addition, we believe one of the company's top clients will report subdued result in the near term. This could impact the near term financials. Further, the company expects a ramp down in Hi Tech and some impact in insurance to be partially offset by banking. This, coupled with the book to bill ratio of 0.8x in Q4FY20, we expect the company to report declining revenues in the next two quarters and an improvement in...

Zensar Technologies Ltd (Zensar) reported a sluggish growth in Q4 FY20 due to COVID outbreak. Revenue stood at Rs. 1017.8 crs down 2.8% YoY and 0.3% QoQ. Operating profit showed a growth of 2.6% YoY at Rs. 100 crs

We cut our FY21/22E rev est. by 5.7/5.8% to factor uncertainty. Increase FY21/22E EPS est. by +2.2/+3.9% due to margin reset. Our TP of Rs 98 is based on 8x (~30% discount to 5Y avg.) FY22E EPS. Maintain ADD. Zensar registered strong margin recovery (+705bps QoQ) but revenue decline was higher than estimate. The deal pipeline continues to be robust (USD 1bn) but TCV has slowed down (-25% YoY) due to Covid-19 related uncertainty. Digital is the key revenue driver but Legacy drag (-9.7% in FY20) is weighing on growth. Delay in decision making, pricing pressure, cut in discretionary spending and high exposure to Hi-Tech, Manufacturing and Retail will pose growth challenges in FY21E.

COVID-19 uncertainty remained a key overhang on We upgrade our EPS estimate for FY21/22E by 9%/15% as (1) we rebase our exchange rate assumptions and adjust our margin trajectory post the beat In 4QFY20, revenue (USD)/EBIT (INR)/PAT decreased 5%/11%/20% YoY (v/s est. Africa grew 7% while EBIT margins posted a robust recovery to 9.8% (~700bp QoQ, higher than our optimization (200bp), (3) Change in service mix ( 80bp). The company does not see any need of goodwill impairment in its acquired Barring FY19 when Zensars overall revenue growth (including inorganic) came close to that of its mid-cap peers (mostly organic), the stock always traded at steep discount to the sector (~8-10x one-year forward P/E). Revenue declined ~1.5% QoQ (CC) due to (1) COVID impact (-4.5 pp), (2) change in revenue mix (-2 pp) and (3) abscence of one-offs which were there in 3QFY20 (+6% QoQ, CC), other verticals reported sequential decline.

The spread of Covid-19 has led to lockdowns in many countries globally and could have adverse economic implications. In addition, the recent fall in crude prices could also have an adverse impact of fiscal health of oil producing countries. As a result, IT companies, which have considerable exposure to verticals such as oil, energy & utilities; banking & capital markets; manufacturing and travel & transport could see an adverse impact from the ongoing crisis. Companies like Wipro, Infosys in large cap and MindTree, NIIT Tech, Sonata software, Cyient, Accelya Solutions among...

Background: Zensar Technologies is an RPG Group company, with end-to-end services from IT development to business process outsourcing. The company's business is spread across USA, Europe and Africa with around 308 active clients. The company's portfolio focuses on Hi-tech & manufacturing, retail and BFSI sectors. Zensar provides Analytics, Cloud & infrastructure, enterprise applications, digital experience and service line transformation...

Zensar Technologies Ltd. (Zensar) reported weak results in terms of top line and on operating margins front in Q3FY20. Zensar posted revenue de-growth of 6.4% on QoQ basis and 0.8% on YoY basis in constant currency (CC) terms for the period of Q3FY20 at Rs.1,021crs.

Deal wins, digital, client mining key growth levers The company reported a sequential decline of 5.9% in dollar revenues in the quarter on the back of 13.4% QoQ drag in core revenues. This was primarily due to client specific ramp down in retail ($5 million) along with seasonal weakness and volume discount given to two clients. On the other hand, digital increased 1.6% QoQ and 20.2% YoY. Further, strong order booking of $170 million+ TCV with 45% as new wins and healthy pipeline coupled with consistent focus on client mining would lead revenues to grow at a...

Zensar's organic growth has slipped (~5% in FY20E vs. ~9% in FY19) due to high exposure to stressed verticals like Hi-Tech, Manufacturing and Retail. BSFI is doing well led by deals wins in Insurance and focus on large African banks. Retail performace has been disappointing and is taking longer than expected to recover. Deal pipeline is healthy at USD 1bn, ~50% of the pipeline are large deals (TCV >USD 5mn) but conversion and execution remains the key. Margin recovery target is aggressive considering the ongoing restructuring and higher onsite revenue mix. We build 7.1/6.1/6.4% Revenue/EBIT/PAT CAGR over FY19-22E. The stock trades at a P/E of 13.5/10.2x FY21/22E, which is reasonable but better growth and margin visibility will lead to re-rating. We downgrade Zensar to NEU (from BUY), post disappointing 3QFY20, growth challenges and weak execution. Deal pipeline is healthy and TCV wins have improved but not reflecting in growth. Margin recovery is slower than expected and Retail/Legacy drag is weighing on growth and margins. We cut FY22E Rev/EPS by 10.5/19.9% and reduce P/E multiple to 11x vs. 12x earlier. Our TP of Rs 177 is based on 11x (~14% discount to 5Y average) Dec-21E EPS.

The sharp decline can be largely attributed to (1) one-time tail account ramp downs in retail, (2) furloughs, and (3) year-end volume discounts. Given the available margin levers and impending headwinds (e.g. wage hikes, etc.), we expect EBITDA margins to remain flat at ~11% in FY21 before Barring FY19 when overall revenue growth (including inorganic) came close to that of mid-cap peers (mostly organic), the stock always traded at a steep discount to the sector (in range of 8-10x one-year forward P/E). This was due to its inferior growth (organic revenue CAGR of 4% over FY15-20E v/s 12%+ for mid-cap peers), pay-out ratio (20% v/s average pay-out of 40%) and return profile (RoE of 18% v/s 30%+ for On our revised estimates, the stock is trading at an optically expensive multiple of ~17x FY21E EPS (depressed earnings though).