Mid-tier IT services firm, Mindtree on Wednesday crossed $250 million revenue milestone in the third quarter of the ongoing fiscal year.

In another development, the management team dismissed rumours around stake sale plan by the founders. Market is abuzz with impending stake sale by Cafe Coffee Day owner and Mindtree's single largest investor VG Siddhartha, who holds close to 21 per cent stake in the company through his various entities. He is learnt to be evaluating options to offload his stake to private equity investors. Even founders of the Bengaluru-headquartered firm are said to have been approached by few PE firms to acquire their stakes, which stands at around 13 per cent as of now.

"There is no change in plans by the leadership team (as far as stake sale is concerned). The management team at Mindtree is one hundred per cent committed to the organisation," Rostow Ravanan, CEO & MD of Mindtree said in reply to a Business Standard query on possible stake sale by the founders. "If any large investor sells his stakes, that is not in our control."

Sources in the know pointed out that currently PE firms such as KKR, Advent, Apax and Carlyle are evaluating the option of buying out Siddhartha's stake and have also sent feelers to the founders to acquire their stakes. Acquisition of founder’s stake assumes significance due to the fact that the acquirer needs to hold at least 26 per cent in the company to have a board representation and to reach the trigger point for an open offer. However, founders are unwilling to part with their holdings as the mid-tier firm is showing strong growth momentum and in most probability will touch the $1 billion revenue mark in the ongoing fiscal.

In the third quarter of this fiscal, Mindtree posted net profit of Rs 191.2 crore, a 35 per cent rise over the corresponding period last year. However, in a sequential quarter term, the net profit declined 7.3 per cent as the company had to take a hit of around Rs 20 crore for an acquisition.

Revenues of the company stood at Rs 1,787.2 crore, a growth of 29.7 per cent YoY and 1.8 per cent in sequential term. In dollar term, Mindtree’s revenue touched $251.5 million, making it a billion dollar firm on revenue run rate basis. While the dollar revenue rose 17.4 per cent on YoY basis, it grew 2.1 per cent in sequential term.

During the first nine months of current financial year, Mindtree has touched a total revenue mark of $739 million.

"We have a strong pipepline of deals with healthy win rates. So, we hope to post an incrementally better quarter in Q4," said Ravanan.

In the quarter ended December, Mindtree saw a 50 basis points expansion of its operating margin sequentially to 15.9 per cent. Better pricing in contracts was one of the major reasons for this margin expansion despite a cross currency headwinds during the quarter.

The company witnessed a 4.7 per cent sequential growth in its retail, CPG & manufacturing vertical, while its hi-tech & media vertical grew by 2.3 per cent QoQ. However, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) segment declined one per cent owing to some client specific issues.

During the quarter, Mindtree added 506 employees on net basis, taking its employee count to 19,908 while the attrition rate went up marginally by 40 basis points to 13.4 per cent.

Share price of Mindtree ended 2.14 per cent lower at Rs 836.60 at the close of trading session on Wednesday when the benchmark index, Sensex ended flat at 36,321.29.