Nicholas Piramal Net May Zoom 76%

The topline of Nicholas Piramal is expected to swell by 76 per cent in the current fiscal following the merger with Rhone-Poulenc (India).

The merged entity has projected sales at Rs 1,000 crore for 2001-02 against Rs 566.76 crore in the previous year.Ajay Piramal, chairman of the company, said it was expecting profits to grow at a higher percentage than sales.

"Our operations have been going on well and so we expect substantial profits," Piramal said. He was addressing the shareholders at the company's annual general meeting here today.

Nicholas Piramal India is in the process of developing five compounds in the segments of diabetes, oncology, diabetes and anti-fungal through its new chemical entity at the Quest Institute of Life Science, acquired by Hoechst Marion Roussel.

The company has entered into an alliance with the government-owned Centre of Biotechnology for Research in the field of genomics, which will help it access the facilities and databases of the latter. The company has undertaken this initiative on the basis of a McKinsey report.

Speaking on the company's future plans, Piramal said, "We expect to control capital expenditure for the next few years and are looking at ways to reduce our working capital. We will only invest in research and development facilities as we already have the required capacity."

"The business environment all over the world is becoming increasingly difficult with competition from foreign products. This has put pressure on prices which is why we need to check the manufacturing costs," he said.

The company has recently sold R P House of its subsidiary Rhone-Poulenc (India) to the Aditya Birla group for a consideration of Rs 84.5 crore.