Hyderabad-based Granules India Limited, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company operating in the B2B space, reported a 41.9 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 7.99 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2011, as against Rs 5.63 crore last year on the back of strong growth in sales driven by the demand from pharmaceutical formulations ingredients and finished dosages.
The increase in net profit comes even after incurring a forex loss of Rs 4.13 crore during the quarter as against a net forex gain of similar amount in the corresponding previous quarter. Net sales grew 45 per cent to Rs 185.72 crore as compared with Rs 128 crore in the same quarter last year.
The finished dosages (FD) to 300 customers in over 50 countries. The FD division grew 61 per cent with a strong demand for Metformin in the US and European markets, and PFI division 52 per cent on the back of Ibuprofen and paracetamol sales.
Granules, which is targeting to be a Rs 5,000-crore company by 2017, is in the process of tripling its FD capacity to 18 billion units and more than double its PFI capacity to 18,000 tonnes at a capex of Rs 100 crore. These additional capacities would be in place in the next six months and would be filled up by new business contracts in the course of 12-15 months, according to Bhaskar Krishna, chief executive officer of Granules India.
Though the company is into high-volume low-margins business, it could improve Ebitda margins (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) by 115 per cent to Rs 15 crore as compared with Rs 7 crore in the third quarter last year, on the back of higher cost to yield performance among other things.
C Krishna Prasad, managing director, said next quarter and the coming year would be a significant milestone in sales and earnings.
