Birla optimistic on Century Enka's future

"The performance of Century Enka will improve to an appreciable level as liability and other costs will come down and help in improving margin," its Chairman B K Birla said on the sidelines of the company's AGM.

He indicated that there would be no further investment in the company until its financials reached an impressive level.

Full-time Director G M Singhvi said due various factors profitability was hampered in 2007-08 over the previous year. In 2007-08, the net profit was down to Rs 13.41 crore from Rs 16.72 crore in the previous year.

The factors were appreciation of rupee which resulted in import of cheaper nylon tyre cord fabric (NTCF), a major product of the company, and rise in interest cost due to additional working capital for fresh NTCF capacity addition of 8,000 tonne.

Singhvi said the company was concentrating on energy conservation as it oil prices were hurting the company. Officials said the company might switch back to the state electricity board as captive power costs have gone due to the high oil price.

The company was also taking other measures to improve margins from quality improvement and cut in manpower cost. Birla said the Century Textile AGM in Mumbai would be chaired by Kumar Mangalam Birla instead of him as in the previous year.