HYDERABAD (Reuters) - Indian software services exporter Mahindra Satyam on Monday posted a net loss for its fiscal fourth quarter, hurt by a one-time expense due to a U.S. shareholder lawsuit settlement, sending its shares down more than 5 percent.
Satyam stunned investors in 2009 when its former chairman and founder Ramalinga Raju said profits had been overstated and assets falsified in a fraud allegedly worth more than $1.5 billion.
The revelation caused the company's shares to plummet. Satyam agreed in February to pay $125 million to settle the U.S. shareholder litigation over that decline.
"If you exclude the one-time expense, the growth at the operational level is decent. This can be improved further as the company is still concentrating on stabilising revenue," said Rohit Anand, sector analyst with PINC Research.
Hyderabad-based Satyam doubled its operating margin to 13 percent in the quarter from the December quarter, its Chairman Vineet Nayyar told a media briefing.
The company's revenue rose 7.5 percent to 13.75 billion rupees quarter-on-quarter.
The company added 12 new clients in the quarter, Chief Executive C.P. Gurnani added.
"We are acutely aware of the challenges that lie ahead in this transformation journey. Accelerating profitable growth and building capability to deal with the scale are our key focus areas," Gurnani said.
Net loss for the quarter that ended March was at 3.27 billion rupees ($72 million) compared with a net profit of 589 million rupees reported in the December quarter for Satyam Computer, which was bought by Tech Mahindra
Analysts had forecast a net profit of 997.5 million rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The company, which restated its results for 2008 and 2009, gave only full-year figures for 2010 without a quarterly break up.
The company's shares were trading 3.6 percent lower at 74.15 rupees in a weak Mumbai market. They have risen over 12 percent this year compared with a near-12 percent fall in the sector index <.BSEIT>. They touched a low of 72.30 rupees earlier in the session.
(Writing by Bharghavi Nagaraju; Editing by Aradhana Aravindan)
