Steel City trading turnover up 111%

Vizag-based Steel City Securities Limited (SCSL) registered a 111 per cent growth in trading turnover at Rs 47,478.58 crore during the financial year ended March 31, 2006, as compared to Rs 22,468.84 crore in the previous year.

"The significant rise in commodities trading helped us achieve this growth," G Raja Gopal Reddy, executive director of SCSL, told Business Standard.

In 2005-06, the company's commodities trading turnover on MCX was Rs 10,526.84 crore (a growth of 469 per cent) and Rs 6,528.05 crore on NCDEX (a growth of 1,500 per cent), as compared to Rs 1,848.31 crore and Rs 410.57 crore respectively in the previous year, he said.

This apart, SCSL has added 80 new branches across the country taking the total number of branches to 256.

"The increase in turnover saw the revenues of the company rising by 44 per cent to Rs 30.01 crore in 2005-06. Last fiscal, SCSL reported an income of Rs 20.83 crore," he said.

SCSL, which earned a net profit of Rs 4.5 crore last financial year, expects to cross this figure in 2005-06. The company is also eyeing a trading turnover of Rs 70,000 crore following the expansion works which it plans to take up in 2006-07.

Rao said SCSL also witnessed more than 100 per cent increase in its clientele base. "By the end of March 2005, we had 35,000 DP accounts, which increased to 76,000 by the end of March 2006." The company was awaiting Sebi's nod to go public, he added.