Vimta Labs FY05 net up 66% at Rs 14.12 crore

Its revenues increased to Rs 52.58 crore, a 51 per cent growth as compared to Rs 34.91 crore in the previous fiscal.

The company has also declared a final dividend of Rs 4 per equity share of Rs 10 each. This includes an interim dividend of Rs 2 per share that has already been declared and paid, S P Vasireddi, chairman and managing director of Vimta Labs, said at a press conference here on Wednesday.

The company's profit before tax touched Rs 22.43 crore, a year-on-year growth of 77 per cent, with the net profit margin being 27 per cent. Its earnings per share has gone up to Rs 39 from Rs 24 in 2003-04.

The export income of the company has also gone up by 83 per cent to Rs 20.99 crore as compared to Rs 11.45 crore in 2003-04.

"Our exports have predominantly been to the US and Europe. We have also entered the Gulf market and are getting good business from the Asia-Pacific region as well," Vasireddi said.

The company earned 40 per cent of its revenues in 2004-05 through exports, and is targeting to increase this to 50 per cent this fiscal.

The company, which already has facilities spread over 80,000 sq ft across Hyderabad, Chennai, Vijayawada and Vizag, is also setting up a two lakh-sq ft laboratory complex in the Genome Valley at a cost of Rs 45 crore (brick and mortar, excluding equipment cost). Of this, Rs 33 crore will be sourced from term loans, while the remaining Rs 12 crore will be raised through internal accruals.

The facility is slated to have molecular biology, microbiology, captive and pre-clinical laboratories besides a knowledge centre and a data centre. Captive laboratories will enable customer-specific food and drug testing whereby each client will be given a dedicated space and equipment of his choice.

The knowledge centre will look at providing training to postgraduate and graduate students to create people-on-demand.

"We will be able to train 50 people in each batch and are looking at increasing our employee-strength to 600 from the present 500 in the current fiscal," he said adding, "We are trying to make this facility a 90 per cent paperless laboratory within the next 12 months." The facility is expected to be commissioned by September 2005.

Vimta Labs is also targeting to be among the top 10 companies globally by 2010. "This means we need to cross at least $100 million in terms of revenues by that time. Our intentions are to grow by 50 per cent this year," Vasireddi said.