Escorts back in the black

The decision to concentrate on its core business areas has paid off for auto, agri machinery and construction equipment manufacturer Escorts Ltd, which announced a profit after tax of Rs 1.57 crore for the quarter which ended on June 30,2006 as compared to loss after tax of Rs 57.38 crore for the corresponding quarter in the previous financial year.

The company's total income went up from Rs 245.64 crore in for the first quarter of 2005-06 to Rs 478.5 crore for the corresponding period in the current financial year.

"After selling off the healthcare and telecom businesses, we were able to pay off some off our loans thereby reducing the interest burden," Escorts Ltd CFO Shailendra Tandon said.

We have also invested some of the liquid assets back into our business to ramp up capacity, so that has also help boost the numbers," Escorts Ltd CFO Shailendra Tandon said.

Company officials said that Escorts had produced and sold 33,000 tractors in the past nine months, while it sold twice only that number in the past 30 months.