State-owned Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals (GACL) has reported a 20.11 per cent rise in profit after tax at Rs 224.08 crore for the year ended March 2008, compared with Rs 186.56 crore in last year.
The company has achieved the highest net external sales (excluding excise duty) of Rs 1,133.63 crore (Rs 1,044.84 crore) in the year, registering an increase of 8.50 per cent. Net sales surged due to increased volume and aggressive marketing efforts despite lower realisation from caustic soda group products. Total income (including excise duty) has increased to Rs 1,392.13 crore (Rs 1,255.62 crore), said Guruprasad Mohapatra, managing director, GACL, in a press release.
The GACL board has also recommended a dividend of 35 per cent. It may be mentioned that GACL, the largest caustic soda manufacturer in India, has recently signed a joint venture agreement with Dow Europe GmbH to set up a 2,00,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) chloromethane plant at Dahej at an estimated project cost of Rs 600 crore. Gillette India net dips 1.3% Personal grooming products company Gillette India reported a 1.3 per cent dip in net profit at Rs 28.41 crore in the quarter ended March 2008, over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The decline in net profit was on account of adjustment of tax provision in the previous year's figures. Net sales, however, grew 15.3 per cent to Rs 140.26 crore in the quarter.
Shantanu Khosla, managing director, Gillette, said, "Men grooming products continue to be the core business for the company and it is rewarding to see Gillette Mach 3 grow by 20 per cent during this quarter." ITI in the black, net at Rs 24.6 cr Public sector telecom company ITI has reported a net profit of Rs 24.6 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2008. It reported a Rs 7 crore loss in the corresponding quarter last year.
The surge in profit is attributed to reduction in expenditure, which witnessed a 59 per cent drop because of a decline in the consumption of raw material and depreciation costs. Profit before tax in the quarter has been pegged at Rs 24.8 crore. However, its topline has decreased by 41.4 per cent to Rs 735 crore in the quarter.
On its performance, ITI stated in a media release, "It was a difficult year as the company had to grapple with scarcity of working capital and expected orders amounting to Rs 2,600 crore not materialising."
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For the full year, the company has managed to trim its net loss by 14.5 per cent to Rs 346 crore. Net sales has come down by 19 per cent to Rs 1,565 crore.
The company, however, hopes to gain strength in the current financial year by widening the product base through acquisition of new technologies. Apart from its readiness to roll out GSM networks amounting to 9 million lines in the west and south zones, ITI has entered into an agreement with Chinese company Huawei for manufacture of next-generation IP-TAX (internet protocol trunk automatic exchange).
The company's IT and networking business has orders worth Rs 250 crore in the pipeline.
The company, which awaits approval from the Union government for its revival plan, expects net purchase orders worth Rs 7,000 crore. The company has claimed that it would triple its topline to Rs 4,850 crore in FY09.