Category: Breaking Corporate India Earnings News

Karuturi Networks has completed all formalities leading lending to acquisition of infrastructure and management control of Sher Agencies, Kenya.

With this acquisition, the company has emerged as the worlds largest producer and exporter of roses. Karuturi Roses are available in Africa, USA. Europe, Middle East, Far East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. This acquisition renders the company as the truly multi national and fully integrated company in India in the field of agriculture.

Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi and Srinivas Rao Karuturi are appointed as the directors of Sher Agencies, Kenya after the existing directors of the company stepped down following the acquisition. The new board of directors have proposed to rename the company as Sher Karuturi.

The board of Orient Information Technology has approved the proposal of amalgamation/merger of the company with IT People (India) and made appointment of Gadgil & Co, chartered accountants, as the valuers for the purpose of valuation of the company.

This was approved at the board meeting held on 20 October 2007.

ACC’s Q3CY07 results were below expectations due to higher power and fuel costs, and muted realization gains. Net revenues, at INR 16.4 bn, grew by 35.3% Y-o-Y, but slid by 11.2% sequentially, as monsoons suppressed volume growth. Sharp increase in power and fuel costs offset savings in raw material costs and EBITDA margin dipped by 214bps Q-o-Q to 27.4%. ACC’s core profits, at INR 2.9 bn, though up 28.4% Y-o-Y, were down 17.9% Q-o-Q.

FY09 will be a transition year for the cement cycle with incremental supply of ~89 mn tonnes coming on-stream between FY08E and FY10E. Detailed demands upply estimates reflect that while tightness will persist till Q1FY09E, industry utilization levels are likely to correct thereafter taking the all India utilization level to ~93% in FY09E from ~101% in FY08E.

Earnings per share is likely to slow down in the coming quarters. Start booking profits on rise.

The net sales have risen by 14% to Rs387.0 crore. The company benefited from the buoyancy in the industrial division where it was able to report a healthy top line growth against a slowdown in the automotive segment.

The operating profit margin has improved by 620 basis points to 17.6%, leading to a brilliant 76.5% growth in the operating profit to Rs68.3 crore. We believe that a better product mix in favour of industrial bearings and greater operational efficiencies triggered the margin growth.

The net profit has grown by 92.5% to Rs43.1 crore against our expectations of Rs37.2 crore. In view of the company’s brilliant performance, we are upgrading our CY2007 estimate by 9.2% to Rs30.1 and CY2008 estimate by 7.2% to Rs35.8.

Here is a chart which explains the co-relation between the rise of rupee and the rush of USD into the Indian market via Promissory Notes or directly via FII route. So you can now judge the impact of withdrawal on INR – it will fall a little bit giving breather to our IT companies.

Biocon has received the necessary approvals from DCGI (drug controller general of India) to market ABRAXANE (nanoparticles based, albumin bound paclitaxel) in India. ABRAXANE has been approved for use in the treatment of breast cancer and will facilitate affordable access of high-quality supportive care therapy to cancer patients in India.

The global revenue for ABRAXANE reached $175 million in the first phase of its launch. Globally ABRAXANE has shown a positive trend in market penetration for metastatic breast cancer. According to IMS data, for the period between February and September 2006 versus the same period the previous year, there was a 64% unit growth in ABRAXANE versus a 11% increase in the overall taxane market.

Biocon completed the formalities with respect to the divestment of its Enzymes business vertical to Novozymes South Asia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Novozymes A/s of Denmark for $115 million on 01 October 2007. The post tax proceeds of this divestment will enable Biocon to strategically focus on its core bio-pharmaceuticals business as well as consider key acquisition opportunities to move up the value chain. This divestment will contribute a one time exceptional net gain this fiscal.