i-flex Solutions surged to an all time high of Rs 1,022 on the reckoning that the company will decide in favour of hiking its FII investment ceiling.

Even after a slight decline from the high, the stock of the Mumbai-based software solutions major was quoting 5.25% higher at Rs 1,009. A total of 3,897 i-flex shares changed hands on BSE by 10:00 IST. In the last one year, i-flex jumped up 133% from Rs 433.05 on 29 July 2002.

On Tuesday, the company announced that the board of directors will meet on 30 June 2003 to consider hiking the ceiling of investment by FIIs under the portfolio investment scheme. It will also discuss other corporate actions such as bonus shares and stock splits.

In fact, the stock has been in the limelight for quite sometime now following hopes that the company's board may issue a bonus issue of shares. The market had even estimated that the bonus issue would be in the ratio of 5:3 or 2:1.

The company's fundamental strength is reflected in the continuous stream of overseas orders it has bagged in its kitty. This week, i-flex's flagship product Flexcube was selected by Egyptian American Bank (EAB) as its core-banking platform. EAB will deploy Flexcube Universal Banking Solutions encompassing both retail and corporate banking along with Flexcube @ Internet Banking Solution. Flexcube will be deployed in all 30 branches of the bank and will replace the bank's flat file mainframe based legacy system.

Earlier this month, the company announced that Irish bank ACCBank chose i-flex Solutions as its banking solutions provider. ACCBank will implement i-flex's flagship product Flexcube for its banking operations. ACCBank also signed up for Reveleus, the business intelligence division of i-flex, to provide the Reveleus FiRE interface for central bank reporting.

But the company's fourth quarter results were a disappointment for the market. For Q4 ended 31 March 2003, the company recorded a 9.5% drop in net profit to Rs 32.84 crore (Rs 35.86 crore) on a 20% increase in revenues to Rs 145.03 crore (Rs 121 crore).

For FY 2002-03, the company registered a 37.55% rise in net profit to Rs 174.37 crore (Rs 126.76 crore) on a 36% increase in revenues to Rs 563.83 crore (Rs 415.02 crore). The board of directors recommended a dividend of 50% (ie Rs 2.50 per share on a face value of Rs 5 ).

On a consolidated basis, for Q4, the company posted a net profit of Rs 38.34 crore on a revenue of Rs 161.95 crore. For the full year, net profit was at Rs 170.08 crore (Rs 115.29 crore) on revenues of Rs 609.85 crore (Rs 419.47 crore).

For Q4, as per US GAAP, the company recorded a net profit of Rs 33.05 crore on a revenue of Rs 163.05 crore. capitalmarket.com had predicted a brighter outcome for the company - a net profit of Rs 41-53 crore for the quarter ended 31 March 2003. Revenues, though, were in line with expectations of Rs 160-172 crore. For the full year, as per US GAAP, the company reported a net profit of Rs 177.06 crore on revenues of Rs 635.73 crore.

i-flex, a leading provider of technology solutions to the financial services sector, derives over 60% of its revenues from high margin products. Its range of solutions includes packaged applications for the financial services industry, custom application software development, deployment, maintenance and support services for financial institutions and business and IT consulting services in the financial services domain.

In May 2003, i-flex Solutions announced that its flagship product Flexcube was selected by Baiduri Bank Brunei as its new core banking system. Flexcube will provide the technology platform for Baiduri Bank, thus enabling it to ramp up retail banking operations while consolidating its corporate banking functions.

Earlier, HypoVereinsbank Group (HVB Group), among the top five banks in Europe, decided to implement i-flex's Flexcube banking solution. i-flex has garnered much of its revenues over the past few years through Flexcube. Recent orders included that of InvestBank, Sharjah, and the Carribean-based Straight Through Processing Inc.

The Flexcube universal banking solution includes back office functions for corporate, treasury, investment, retail and private banking systems.

As on 31 March 2003, the promoters' holding in i-flex was at 43.19%, while the public and institutions held 40.41% and 7.74% respectively.