Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), the country’s largest power equipment manufacturer, has posted a 6 per cent increase in net profit for 2008-09 (FY09), even as it prepares to finalise a joint venture with a foreign firm to make power transmission equipment.
‘We are in talks with a European firm and a Japanese firm,” said K Ravi Kumar, the Chairman and Managing Director. The JV, he said, will be signed in three months. “We would invest about Rs 1,000 crore in the joint venture, which would take up both transmission products as well as projects,” he added.
Sales of transission equipment made up a tenth of the total income for the year, of Rs 27,505 crore. The net profit, after making a provision of Rs 1,728 crore for wage revision, was Rs 3,039 crore in the financial year, as compared to Rs 2,857 crore in the previous year (2007-2008). The company’s net profit had grown 18 per cent in the previous year.
“Had it not been for the wage revision, our net profit would have been up 25 per cent,” said Ravi Kumar. “Our growth is satisfying. Sales have grown 30 per cent,” he added. The Rs 27,505 crore of total income is an increase by 28.5 per cent, compared to Rs 21,401 crore the previous year.
Earlier this year, Kumar had said the company had set Rs 25,000 crore as the target for total income, and was eyeing an increase in net profit of around 27 per cent.
The Navratna PSU got orders worth Rs 59,687 crore in FY09, a rise of 19 per cent over FY08. The total order book is around Rs 1,17, 000 crore.
BHEL is India’s state-owned manufacturer of power plant equipment, with a current manufacturing capacity of about 10,000 Mw. The company plans to further double it to 20,000 Mw by the end of the current plan period (2012).
