Month: May 2008

Reliance ADAG’s Adlabs Films has entered into agreement for acquisition of majority and controlling interest in Lotus Five Star Cinemas and will be operating a 51 screen cinema exhibition chain in Malaysia.

The chain will have a footprint across the Malaysia and will be playing mainstream Hollywood films in addition to movies in the Indian languages viz. Hindi, Tamil, Chinese and Malay.

Adlabs currently has 160 screens operating in India. Its international presence, in addition to Malaysia, comprises 220 screens covering the East, Mid West and West Coast of USA as also Mauritius and Nepal.

Bharati Shipyard’s 4Q08 PAT was Rs327m (up 6% yoy) on revenue of Rs2.06bn (up 30% yoy). OPM stood at 27.3% compared to 33.1% in the previous-year corresponding period. This arose from higher subsidy being booked in the same quarter the previous year. Adjusted for this, the overall margin has improved.

The order book, at Rs46.35bn, has stagnated in the past six months, largely as capacities are running at optimum utilization. Management intends to procure further orders once additional progress on the Dabhol capex is made.

The Mangalore shipyard is scheduled to commence operations by Sep.-Oct.’08 (against 1Q09 earlier), and would be fully commissioned by Mar.’10. The yard at Dabhol has touched 25%
utilisation and is expected to reach its peak after FY10.

Despite 28% Q-o-Q decline in revenues to INR 3 bn (due to lower sugar sales volumes), there were operational positives in the Q2FY08 results. The sugar segment reported bumper profitability of 17.8% on better sugar realization and better spread of fixed costs on higher production base.

Co-products clocked yet another strong quarter with cogeneration reporting 61% Y-o-Y growth in revenues to INR 947 mn and 52% EBIT margins. Distillery revenues remained flat Y-o-Y at INR 498 mn. Strong performance across segments meant EBITDA margins tripled to 43%, while EBITDA grew 135% Y-o-Y to INR 1.3 bn. Despite higher fixed expenses in Q2FY08, (interest at INR 231 mn vis-a-vis INR 150 mn last year, depreciation at INR 306 mn vis-a-vis INR 194 mn a year ago), earnings grew 229% Y-o-Y to INR 657 mn.

Moser Baer reported 4Q loss of ~Rs720m (standalone) compared to ~Rs400m profit in 4QFY07. For FY08, Moser reported standalone losses of Rs800m. Optical media outlook continues to be challenging with another sharp ASP fall this quarter. New businesses are still in investment mode and do not contribute much.

Optical Media is going through severe pricing pressures due to a difficult supply-demand scenario with the dispute on royalty issue between Philips and the large CDR producers. Management admitted that near-term challenges are likely to continue.

PV business had $20m revenue in 4Q. The 40 MW crystalline silicon line is being expanded to 80 MW soon and production capacity of solar modules has been expanded to 40 MW.

TAJ GVK reported 5.4% yoy increase in sales as ARRs for Chandigarh increased by 14% yoy while those for Taj Krishna in Hyderabad remained flat as compared to a year ago. Operating margins improved marginally by 30bps yoy as other expenditure declined yoy.

During the quarter, the company carried out routine renovation work which led to higher depreciation charge but a lower tax outgo led to 7% rise in net profit. For the full year FY08, PAT increased 9.5% as ARRs rose 3.7% on average across four properties.

The company is expected to commission its 215 room hotel in Chennai in May taking total room inventory to 899 rooms. The company is expected to report a Modest EPS Growth of Rs 12.8 for FY09.