Avon Organics Ltd has posted a 635 per cent rise in the net profit to Rs 1.08 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2001, compared with Rs 14.69 lakh in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. The sales turnover also rose by 41.5 per cent to Rs 16.9 crore (Rs 11.94 crore). The annualised earnings per share for the quarter works out to Rs 4.65 crore on an equity of Rs 9.30 crore.
The improved performance of the company is attributed to the higher margins in the value-added pigment intermediates that were introduced recently and the commercialisation of ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine plant, located at Solapur in Maharashtra.
The company had set up this plant with an investment of Rs 17 crore to produce 100 tonne of pseudo-ephidrine and 30 tonne of ephidrine per annum. The semi-synthetic fermentation technology for these drugs has been sourced from Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow.
To part-finance the project, the company has made a preferential issue of 18 lakh equity shares at a premium of Rs 28.75 in January 2000. The company has introduced about 5-6 diketene-based pigment intermediates in addition to the pharmaceutical and agro-chemical intermediates that it is manufacturing for several years.
The company is targeting higher turnover from the Solapur unit in the subsequent quarters as it is fully stabilised in the past two months. T V Prasad, finance director of the company, said the company expects a total turnover of Rs 70-75 crore in the current fiscal.
