Hexaware faces challenges in one of its top three accounts

Mint

4 days ago

Hexaware Technologies Ltd is facing challenges in one of its top three accounts, which will knock off at least 1% of the company's incremental revenue because of the client's cost-saving efforts.
The country's tenth-largest information technology (IT) services firm, which ended 2024 with $1.43 billion in revenue, counts Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac) among its five largest customers. Both these companies collectively bring the IT outsourcer about $150 million in revenue annually.
Chief executive Srikrishna Ramakarthikeyan maintained that slower business from one of these clients will impact 1% of the revenue during the company's post-earnings analyst call on 29 April. This implies a ramp down from the business in the current year by $14.3 million.
Minthas learnt from at least three people with knowledge of the matter that Hexaware has seen a slowdown in business from Fannie Mae, one of its top three clients. While CEO Srikrishna did not specify the clients' names, he referred to two 'JSCs' or joint stock companies.
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Minthas learnt that Fannie Mae is ramping down, and there was a delay in project execution from another mortgage company, which it has learnt to be Freddie Mac.
The company's management said the ramp-down was an attempt to reduce costs and reduce the number of IT outsourcers they work with.
'They have roughly 2,500 contractors, which they do business with over hundred people. We are less than 20% of that, but we are the largest. And they said they want to get it down to a very small number, somewhere between two and 10," said Srikrishna, during the post-earnings call.
Hexaware has three clients that fetch the company upwards of $75 million in revenue annually.
The company follows a January-December financial year.
Two US accounts
He said there was another delay in project execution with a client they won earlier in the year as part of the latter's vendor consolidation drive, which narrows the number of IT outsourcers a company works with. However, Srikrishna said work on the project has started after the delay.
Hexaware ended the three months through March 2025 with $371.5 million in revenue, down 0.2% sequentially.
Still, the genesis of the ramp down can be traced to a change in management at Fannie Mae.
US President Donald Trump appointed William Pulte as the chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in January this year. The aim was to privatise both mortgage companies that were under government control since the 2008 financial crisis, and to help in more borrowing and more home construction in US.
Pulte's first move was to rejig the leadership of the two companies. To this end, Diana Reid, chief executive of Freddie Mac, was also sacked, along with at least 700 employees of both companies. This rejig also led to both companies reducing the IT vendors they work with and renegotiating their contracts.
For now, at least one analyst has raised concerns.
'The recent board shake-up at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae has introduced uncertainty around IT spending priorities, particularly in light of tightening US federal budgets. Given HEXT's (Hexaware) exposure to Fannie Mae as one of the top accounts, we see short-term uncertainty and a possible risk to revenue estimates if spending slows or contracts are re-evaluated," said Abhishek Pathak, research analyst atMotilal Oswal Financial Services, in a report released in May 2025.
Driving consolidation
He added that while Hexaware has been getting stable revenue from the company for 15 years, 'it has also resulted in heavy onsite exposure, which has dented margins compared to more offshore-centric competitors."
Challenges in two of its top accounts signal that the company will have to beef up revenue in its remaining top accounts or bag new deals at a time when companies are holding back tech spending due to tariffs imposed by Trump.
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To be sure, the company expected both projects to ramp up from April this year, with both clients giving between $20 million and $35 million in incremental revenue annually from next year.
A second analyst said the rampdown and delay were part of a consolidation drive by the two US-based mortgage companies.
'The game plan of Freddie and Fannie is to do away with on-site vendors as part of a vendor consolidation drive, which is basically with an aim to cut costs, but Hexaware has a diversified client base, so challenges can be overcome," said a Mumbai-based analyst on condition of anonymity.
Hexaware seems to be offsetting the challenge.
Its other top three clients, including consulting firm Ernst & Young Global Ltd, are expected to help the company grow. Revenue from its top five clients, which make up roughly a fourth of its revenues, grew 14.16%, faster than the company's 12.37% at the end of January-March 2025.
Another thumbs up for the IT outsourcer is its diverse client base. No single client has contributed more than a tenth of its total revenue over the last three years, ensuring that its destiny is not tied to one or two large accounts.
US top market
Revenue from financial service providers makes up almost a third of the company's revenue, and its biggest market is the US, where the company gets more than three-fourths of its business.
Despite the challenge in these accounts, private equity giant Carlyle-backed Hexaware, which does not give guidance, maintains it will have a solid year.
'So just between these two, we'll convert Q2 from what would've been a great Q2 to a good Q2. So we still expect to have a good Q2, but actually the underlying performanceex of these two, will actually be a very solid Q2. And that momentum will continue into Q3," said Srikrishna, adding that more deals in the pipelineand those that ramp up later in the year will help the company grow sequentially in the fourth quarter.
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'So we actually expect to have a pretty solid year," said Srikrishna.
Emails sent to Hexaware, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae on 2 June went unanswered.
Still, this ramp-down in business for Hexaware underscores a trend for IT service providers in the last 12 months.Mphasis Ltd lost a chunk of its business with FedEx to Accenture Plc, while Microsoft reduced the business it gave to LTIMindtree Ltd andSonata Software Ltd.