SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (SBL) has shown a 71.65 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 33.18 crore for the year ended December 31 1997. Sales grew by 28.47 per cent to Rs 259.50 crore as against Rs 201.99 crore in the corresponding period last year.
But the bottomline was considerably helped by a 229 per cent increase in other income to Rs 8.03 crore as against Rs 2.45 crore last year.
The company has announced a bonus of one share for every share held and a dividend of fifty per cent for the full year.
Operating profit margin has shown an improvement of 2 percentage points to 16.31 per cent as against 14.31 per cent last year. The main reason for this spurt is the improvement in performance from its vaccine segment.
The company has also been able to improve margins due to its cost control and to improve further on this aspect, the company is investing Rs 10 crore in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions.
The companys plant at Mysore, which is into tropical medicine development, has been successful in developing new malarial and other compounds for tropical diseases.
Nishid Shah, GM Research, Inquire Indian Equity Research says, the results are exceptionally good more so in the light of the pharma industry which has shown a growth rate of around 8-10 per cent.
The main reason for the improved results is the success of its Hepatitis B vaccine Engerix and growth in other products like Zevit, Zental, Depaendal and Fefol-Z.
SBL has drastically cut down its interest burden by 35.44 per cent to Rs 0.52 lakhs. At the end of the year SBL is said to have turned out to be a zero debt company.
The company has provided depreciation of Rs 1.71 crore which is close to last years figure of Rs 1.72 crore.
But, the tax liability increased substantially by 31.38 per cent to Rs 18 crore.
However, the tax was paid at a lower rate at 35.16 per cent against 41.47 per cent.
