Syngene International has posted robust revenue growth of 30 percent in the fourth quarter of FY19. The company's growth rate for the full year stood at 28 percent, driven by strong performances in discovery and development services.

Jonathan Hunt, chief executive officer of the company, spoke about the results and gave his outlook for the future. “The key contributors of this performance were our discovery services group. This group covers chemistry, biology and bioinformatics, so they have strong performance throughout the year. It kept building and led to excellent performance in the fourth quarter,” he added.

"Those are the strategic collaborations we have got with key clients. They are long cycle businesses because they are integrating our operations with our clients seamlessly and getting into a collaborative partnership mode. They often take years to develop but once they are up and running, they are stable with an opportunity to expand as we increase the complexity of what we do. So both of those two businesses did very well during both the quarters and also throughout the year,” Hunt pointed out.

On margins front, he said, “I would expect the EBITDA margin to be in low 30 range and that is exactly what we have said over the last 5-10 years that we are in upper quartile EBITDA business by our industry peer group and that reflected the added value services we deliver. I expect that to be quite stable as we go into the coming year.”

When asked about the company's plans for cash utilisation, Hunt said, “We are cash positive today and expect to continue to be cash positive over the next couple of years. We will fund any investments that we need. The investments that are visible today are out of our operating cash flow as well as service to debt that we have taken on and pay that debt as it matures.”

First Published:Apr 25, 2019 4:29 PM IST