Emami braves AMRI storm net profit rises 10.5%

Kolkata-based Emami’s net profit for the third quarter rose 10.45 per cent to Rs 94.49 crore, compared with Rs 85.55 crore during the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

The company’s net sales rose 13.24 per cent to Rs 457.26 crore, against Rs 403.8 crore of the third quarter of the fiscal 2010-11. This comes as a a boost for the company which is yet to come out of the shock of the fire at Dhakuria’s Advance Medicare and Research Institute (AMRI) Hospital, in which Emami Group had a majority stake, on December 9.

After the incident, three of the firm’s board members who were also directors of AMRI — R S Agarwal, R S Goenka and S K Todi — were arrested and the police is on the lookout for two other directors, Aditya Agarwal and Preeti Sureka. R S Agarwal is the promoter and executive chairman, R S Goenka a promoter and non-executive chairman and S K Todi is an independent director. In the absence of Agarwal and Goenka who are custody, Viren J Shah, a non-executive independent director chaired the board meeting on Saturday.

The company’s profit for the quarter was aided by the judicious price rise in different products over a period of time. “During the quarter, we have seen a 15 per cent growth in the domestic market, at the same time the company has restructured export business also. The rise in profit was also because of the judicious increase in prices for over a period of time,” said N H Bhansali, chief executive officer of finance, strategy and business development of the firm.

The company would come up with its Bangladesh unit by March. It had formed a subsidiary called Emami Bangladesh Ltd to set up its manufacturing unit in Dhaka. “The unit will gradually take care of the demand for brands like Boroplus and Navratna in that country. We are planning to use it a base to export to Pakistani market,” he added.

Himani Navratna in Kolaveri Di song
Emami has signed for an in-film promotion of the movie 3, a directorial debut of Aishwarya Dhanush, starring Dhanush and Shruti Hassan in the lead roles. The song Kolaveri Di in the movie would sport an advertisement of the firm’s brand Himani Navratna Cool Oil.

Navratna is the market leader in the segment, with a 52 per cent market share. The brand is endorsed by celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.