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Friday,
May 3, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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CORPORATE NEWS
Ind-Swift
net up 53 pc INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT
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Chinese
to make Usha fans E-enabled
services can bridge digital divide Software
exports up 29 pc Bollywood
bug bites the Tatas
Telco,
Leyland, M&M sales down Sinha,
Naik discuss hike in crude oil prices Chautala
to promote agro industry UTI
Bank net rises
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CORPORATE NEWS
Mumbai, May 2 The board has recommended a Rs 9 per share dividend for the financial year 2001-02, aggregating Rs 82.5 crore, Birla group executive president D. Rathi told newspersons here today. For the fourth quarter ended March 2002, the net profit dipped by 40.58 per cent at Rs 79.23 crore (Rs 133.36 crore in Q4 of last fiscal) while net income fell to Rs 1,110.10 crore (Rs 1,156.32 crore), he added. Exide
Exide Industries has reported a 42.88 per cent decline in its net profit to Rs 7.78 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2002 as compared to Rs 13.62 crore in the corresponding period last year. Total income for the quarter ended March 31, 2002 also decreased to Rs 218.81 crore as against Rs 238.21 crore in the same period last year. For the financial year ended March 31, 2002, posted a net profit of Rs 31.42 crore as compared to Rs 41.55 crore in the same period last year, reflecting a decline of 24.38 per cent over the same period. Total income for the year ended March 31, 2002 increased to Rs 792.49 crore as against Rs 771.20 crore in the same period last year. The board of directors has recommended a dividend of 35 per cent or Rs 3.50 per share, company sources said.
Indal
Indian Aluminium Company Ltd’s net profit for the financial year 2001-02 remained flat at Rs 117.07 crore compared to Rs 116 crore in the previous year. The board has recommended a dividend of Rs 4 per share for the financial year 2001-02.
Silverline Tech
IT company Silverline Technologies Ltd has posted a net profit of Rs 13.15 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2002, down 42.91 per cent from Rs 23.04 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.
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Ind-Swift net up 53 pc
Chandigarh, May 2 The product basket for the company added twenty new brands, which accounted for 14 per cent of the total sales. Top five brands of Ind-Swift, Anin, Stemin, Neurophen, Clarie and Suprox together registered 44 per cent rise in sales, which contributed 32 per cent of the company’s total sales figure. Mr V.K. Mehta, Director Ind-Swift remarked, “Our focus has been on company’s major brands. The impetus has also been on introduction of new generation molecules from fast growing therapy classes like cardiology, CNS, diabetology. Mr Mehta said that in current fiscal the company will file patents for four of its products on NODS. The company is also setting up USFDA approved facility for entering the highly regulated markets of US, Europe, Japan, UK and Canada. Agencies,
TNS
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INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT Cement companies, like all commodity companies, generate good returns during the boom years while their performance goes down drastically during recessionary conditions. However, increased focus of cement companies on incorporating operating efficiency, cost reduction and performance improvement measures have improved their performance. This has also been supported by the firming up of price realisation across markets following the control of cement production and dispatches by the cement majors since the latter part of FY2001. The Indian cement industry is highly competitive and consists of over 50 companies operating around 120 plants. Though the Indian cement industry has made progress on the consolidation front, It has still a long way to go before it can achieve a sustainable pricing power. consolidation in the Indian markets is still at a nascent state with nearly 50 per cent of the cement capacity in the hands of the top cement producers compared to 80-85 per cent consolidation internationally. The cartel that was formed as a result of the large-scale consolidation has not held its ground. With an installed capacity of 130 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), the Indian cement industry is the second largest in the world, after China. The country enjoys this rank despite its relatively low per capita cement consumption. In terms of regional concentration, the southern and northern regions together account for about 74 per cent of the total installed capacity. In terms of consumption, the Northern region leads, accounting for about 37 per cent of the total consumption, followed by the South with 27. The Government of India, which used to be the largest cement buyer accounting for over 50 per cent of cement demand during the 1980s, has seen its share decline. Currently, the GoI accounts for around one-fourth of the total domestic consumption of cement.
Demand-supply trend Future demand growth, capacity utilisation levels, and incremental capacity additions (through debottlenecking/manufacturing blended cement) remain critical variables affecting the demand — supply balance in the domestic cement market. It appears that there would be a surplus going forward. This pattern is likely to have implications for cement companies in terms of: restrictions in incremental capacity addition, reduction of capacity utilisation level; and targeting export markets and/or deficit regions in the domestic market.
Future outlook The last few Union Budgets have seen the government placing greater emphasis on the housing and infrastructure sectors. This has provided the necessary impetus to growth. Besides, improvement in price realisations in the latter part of FY2001 and continued focus on improvement in operating efficiency have countered the negatives, and accordingly, the profitability of cement companies improved during FY2001. This trend got carried forward in the first half (H1) of FY2002 on the strength of improved cement offtake, firm price realisations and focus of cement companies on cost control. Although there are concerns over the rate of economic growth (and hence cement consumption growth) in the immediate term, it appears that the medium to long term, cement demand should experience a healthy growth. Such growth would be driven largely by the incentives being provided by the government to the infrastructure and housing sectors. Future drivers of cement demand growth in India would be the reconstruction activity in Gujarat, road projects (especially the Golden Quadrilateral project in which over 1,600 km of roads are supposed to be made of concrete) and housing projects. The future would also see greater consolidation, and the fragmented structure of the Indian cement industry is likely to give way to a more consolidated one. Only players with deep pockets — who increasingly focus on enhancing operating efficiency, have high economies of scale, are not dependent on few regional markets, have good distribution logistics and possess a good brand name — are likely to survive in the long run.
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Chinese to make Usha fans Chandigarh, May 2 “Competition is hotting up and if anyone wants to survive in the new environment, he has to cut down costs and improve quality”, said Mr Sunil
Wadhwa, Managing Director of UIL, said in an interview with TNS here today. “We found that it would be more economical to produce the fans in China and sell them here. So we did it. We ask them to produce fans according to our specifications. We also supply them with our electric motors which are then fitted into the fans and the product is sent to us”. Mr Wadhwa says mass production is the key to the economy of scales. “In China, there are factories which are producing up to 1 crore fans annually. Production at such a massive scale results in bringing down the costs. We do not have such big factories in India. As a matter of fact, our total annual requirement is just 3 lakh fans. Plastic fan is a relatively low technology item and can be easily made by the Chinese at a low price. It, therefore, makes sense to have our products made cheaply in China and sell them here or export to other
markets”. UIL exported 2.5 lakh fans to West Asia last year. The export target for this year has been set at 5 lakh fans. Mr Wadhwa also says up to 30 per cent of the fans under the Usha brand name may be fake. “It has become a serious problem”, says Mr
Wadhwa. Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and J and K are important markets for us. At the same time, the problem of spurious Usha fans is also gigantic. UIL is trying its best to tackle the problem by organising frequent raids and checks.
Meanwhile, UIL has unveiled a whole range of new products that promise to take the market by
storm. The range of product categories which saw new entrants covered Usha’s entire range which includes fans, sewing machines, home appliances and pumps, engines and water management
products. Usha will unveil digital inverters. UIL will market two models of inverters: 650VA and 1250 VA.
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E-enabled services can bridge digital divide Chandigarh, May 2 Inaugurating a CII seminar on “E-Commerce for Managers”, Lt. Gen. Jacob said the STPI (Software Technology Parks of India) complex to come up in the Kishangarh area of Chandigarh would offer first rate facilities for new enterprises in this sector. The Chandigarh administration had computerised the police force and sales tax set up, and was working on computerising other operations in its move towards e-governance, he said. E-enabled development could bridge the digital divide by offering re-engineered alternatives, in the context of not only developing countries but enterprises both large and small, said keynote speaker Mr A Didar Singh, Secretary to the Govt. of Punjab and Consultant , E – Commerce, highlighting the what and why of E- commerce in his presentation. This was the “e-age “ where every activity had an “e-context “ said Mr Y Saboo, Chairman, CII Chandigarh Council. E – business was an enabling tool that was inexorably changing the way we live and work, therefore it was critical to develop proper understanding of the benefits and threats it posed.
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Software exports up 29 pc
New Delhi, May 2 While exports of Information Technology (IT) services were increased by 22 per cent at Rs 29,400 crore, those of IT-enabled services
(ITES) shot up 71 per cent at Rs 7,100 crore. IT services comprise over 80 per cent of the export basket, according to the
Nasscom. UNI |
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Bollywood bug bites the Tatas
Mumbai, May 2 Speaking to UNI, Tata Infomedia General Manager Milind Kalekar said, “we will set up a separate division in the next three months for
production of motion pictures.” Asked about the investment proposal, Mr Kalekar said nothing was finalised at this moment. ‘’Its a new concept...this is our first attempt... we need to learn...we will be very cautious.” Mr Kalekar also hinted that his company would be going alone in production of films and did not have any plans to have any alliance and partnership. The company will be stay out of film distribution which is speculative in nature. Considered to be the first top-rank corporate house to venture into film business, the Rs-111 crore commercial printing company will come out with its first product by end of this year.
UNI
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Telco, Leyland, M&M sales down
New Delhi, May 2 Total domestic sales fell 3.1 per cent to 1.32 lakh vehicles from 1.36 lakh vehicles in the previous fiscal, according to data compiled by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). Despite the overall downtrend, medium and heavy (M&H) vehicles performed better, registering a modest 2.5 per cent growth at 83,997 units during the year ended March 31, 2002. But, in the light commercial vehicle (LCV) segment, sales were down 11.6 per cent to 48,253 units (54,625 units in 2000-01). Sales of the Tata Engineering grew 8.8 per cent year-on-year to 56,851 vehicles (52,254 units).
PTI
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Sinha, Naik discuss hike in crude oil prices
New Delhi, May 2 “We have just discussed the impact of international crude price hike on domestic product prices and oil companies,” Naik said after a 50-minute meeting with Sinha. State-run oil retailing companies are selling petrol at a loss of Rs 4 per litre and diesel at Rs 3.43 per litre as crude oil price has increased to over $ 25 per barrel as against the $ 20 a barrel budgeted at the time of last petroleum product price review. “We exchanged notes and looked at what could be the system of (checking) volatility,” Naik said.
PTI
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Chautala to promote agro industry Chandigarh, May 2 Mr Chautala was addressing prospective investors in S.S. Hall of Garware Club House, Mumbai, yesterday. He said the department would soon formulate a comprehensive food processing policy highlighting post-harvest infrastructure, international food standards, tax rationalisation and incentives and concessions to new entrepreneurs. He had received a very good response from industrialists of Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai he had visited so far. He asked investors to help in speedy industrial development of Haryana as they had done in Maharashtra. Mr Chautala said since July 1999, when he took over the reins of the government as many as 4,500 large, medium and small units had been set up in the state with an investment of Rs 1,900 crore creating direct employment for 40,000 people. The top priority was being given to increasing the power generation in the state. The Chief Minister also assured them to set up transport nagar on the National Highway passing through the state on the demand of industrialists. Others who were present included Urban Development Minister of Haryana Subhash Goyal, President Vyapar Cell and Chairman Haryana Warehousing Corporation Niranjan Lal Bansal, Vice-Chairman of the foreign investment board Prem Singh and Managing Director of the HSIDC Harbaksh Singh.
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UTI Bank net rises UTI Bank Ltd has posted a net profit of Rs 42.06 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2002, up 50.64 per cent from Rs 27.92 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal. Total income rose from Rs 348.73 crore in MQ-01 to Rs 467.83 crore in the quarter ended March 31, 2002. The bank has posted a 55.76 per cent rise in net profit to Rs 134.14 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2002 as compared to Rs 86.12 crore in the fiscal ended March 31, 2001.The Board of Directors has recommended a dividend of 20 per cent for the year ended March 31, 2002.
UNI
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Cement
companies, like all commodity companies, generate good returns during
the boom years while their performance goes down drastically during
recessionary conditions. However, increased focus of cement companies on
incorporating operating efficiency, cost reduction and performance
improvement measures have improved their performance.
New Delhi, May 2
