| The Van Gogh Masochist's Award: Navin Fluorine |
| The company took a voluntary remaining write-off of Rs 5.06 crore in the first quarter of FY08 related to people expenses when this could have been amortised equally over four quarters of the current financial year (the company did amortise it across three quarters in 2006-07). |
| As it turned out, the company reported its first losing quarter in recent memory in FY08 (Q1). Official reason: 'Cleaning up the balance sheet in one go'. My hunch: when someone starts doing this, it is a sign of confidence of future earnings. |
| The Christopher Lee Grace-Under-Pressure Award: Shree Renuka Sugars |
| The company reported a consolidated pre-tax profit of Rs 49.5 crore in the June 2007 quarter (unrealised exchange gain of Rs 19.6 crore) when even the venerable ones, Balrampur Chini and Bajaj Hindustan, reported net losses of Rs 47 crore and Rs 60 crore respectively. |
| EBIDTA margin of 29 per cent compared with Balrampur's minus 4 per cent for the quarter under consideration. Mr Murkumbi, aapke saath kabhi baithna hai... |
| The Casio Wake-up-Call Award: Piramyd Retail |
| Retail, retail, retail. Great profits, profits, profit. High PE, high PE, high PE. Well, mum just woke the analyst up. Piramyd Retail reported a net loss of Rs 21.24 crore on a revenue of Rs 39.98 crore in the first quarter of 2007-08 even before Reliance has quite flexed its muscles and Bharti-Wal-Mart has come out to bat. Trailer? |
| The Edward de Bono Lateral Strategy Award: Seshasayee Paper |
| Have heard of companies with a top line strategy, but finally here is one with a distinctive bottom line strategy. Consider the numbers: Top line increased nearly Rs 9 crore over the previous corresponding quarter, but EBIDTA jumped Rs 8.4 crore. |
| While the rest of the industry has been building production capacity, Seshasayee Paper has been investing in cost-cutting instead. Enhancing accruals today to use them to fund capacity later. So I am prepared: no top line growth but an attractive bottom line increase in the current year. Case study? |
| The Saint-Gobain Clarity and Transparency Award: Suzlon Energy |
| A 54 per cent decline in net profit in the first quarter of FY08 compared with the corresponding quarter in FY07. Reflex action: duck. Not Suzlon. Refer to the 1221-sq cm colour advertisement of its first quarter performance in any newspaper you can think of. And it contains nearly 700 words of performance explanation. |
| The headline is relevant: 'As a company that has a stake in the planet's future, we sure have a lot to share.' Remember that the CFO could easily have said: "Tulsibhai, aa vaqtey profit kum chhey, naani ad aapiye!" |
| The Lal Salaam For-You-Know-What Award: NDTV Limited |
| Prannoy Roy may be one of the most influential TV personalities in India today, but try seeing the rub-off in his company's bottom line. NDTV reported its fourth losing quarter - in Q1 FY08 - out of five after charging an extraordinary item. |
| Before this extraordinary item, the company reported a net margin of 1.4 per cent. Market capitalisation: Rs 2250 crore (as on 3 August). Oh world, please educate me. |
| The Saurav Ganguly Back-Into-Favour Award: Amara Raja Batteries |
| For years, this Indian presence of the world's largest automotive battery manufacturer had quite lost its way but it sure has selected some of its most challenging recent quarters - lead prices have jumped to a record high on the LME - to recharge and report its best-ever performance. |
| The company has reported three straight quarters of EBIDTA growth (which is not as simple when you consider that the June quarter is often weaker than the March quarter in most businesses), EBIDTA margins have strengthened from 13.6 per cent to 16.03 per cent over three quarters and the EBIDTA differential between Exide's EBIDTA margin and its own has declined to a mere 379 basis points over the last few quarters. And now the company is expanding out of accruals so that means. |
| The David Ogilvy Potential-Client Award: Tera Software |
| The broad IT software industry reported an EBIDTA margin of around 25-30 per cent in 2006-07, Tera earned 41 per cent. The broad IT software industry reported a significant decline in margins in the first quarter of 2007-08 compared to the immediately previous quarter, Tera reported a drop of around 100 basis points only. |
| So what is this Tera? Answer: an e-governance company with rupee revenues (ah!) and a Rs 250-crore order book. For this company, the operative abbreviation in effective value enhancement is not 'IT' but 'PR'. |
| The Indian Rope Trick Vertical-Profits Award: Voltamp Transformers |
| It's normal to hear of completely unknown companies deliver unbelievable numbers for one to respond with 'Furjee!' Here comes an exception. It added Rs 26.03 crore in top line between the third quarter of 2006-07 and the first quarter of 2007-08. It added Rs 11.36 crore to EBIDTA during this period. |
| Normal EBDITA for the first quarter 21 per cent; incremental EBIDTA 44 per cent. Interest cover: 135. Tax per share: Rs 9.5 for the quarter. And everybody - including my mother-in-law - says this is only the beginning of the power sector boom.... |
| The Harry Houdini Putting-Magic Into-Numbers Award: Apollo Hospitals |
| It added Rs 22.60 crore in top line between the fourth quarter of 2006-07 and the first quarter of 2007-08. It added Rs 18.2 crore to its EBIDTA between the two periods. Normal EBIDTA margin of 20.6 per cent, incremental EBIDTA margin of 80.5 per cent. Tipping point? |
| The Asafa Powell First-Off-The-Blocks Award: Vijay Shanthi Builders |
| Most companies that have ERPs still conveniently schedule their quarterly board meetings during the last day of the immediately following month. Why? Because it was always done that way. Consider one who flew over the cuckoo's nest - Vijay Shanthi Builders. |
| Board meeting for the June quarter results was on July 4, probably the first printed results ad that I came across (I am willing to be educated). Net profit more than quadrupled compared to the previous corresponding quarter. So when people have a good story to tell they are likely to say it faster. Psychology, right? |
| The Cigar-In-The-Mouth-During-WWII Award: LMW |
| The rupee appreciates, exports become challenging, the viability of your customer's business declines, steel appreciates and input costs increase. In these circumstances, LMW's EBIDTA margin declined a mere 135 basis points corresponding to an EBIDTA of Rs 97.5 crore for the June quarter on a measly equity of Rs 12.37 crore. No debt. You can read that again for a company with an order book of Rs 6,500 crore (as on March 31, 2007). |
| The 'Nobody Loves Me' Consolation Prize: India Foils |
| Take a look at the results of all the Vedanta Group companies and you find the proud group logo on the ad. Whether it is Sterlite, Hindustan Zinc or Malco. But not on India Foils. The company reported a loss of Rs 8.43 crore in the first quarter of 2007-08. Nobody likes to be associated with a loser, I guess. |
| The writer holds shares in Navin Fluorine, Amara Raja Batteries and Tera Software, while his company Trisys has had a fiduciary relationship with Navin Fluorine and LMW in the past. He can be reached at mudar@trisyscom.com |
Top Section
Explore Business Standard