WS Inds targets Rs 400 cr turnover

Chennai-based power insulator maker WS Industries (India) Ltd has set a target of Rs 400 crore turnover by 2011-12 for which it would invest around Rs 40 crore.

The company is likely to close the current fiscal with a turnover of around Rs 300 crore as compared with Rs 218.06 crore in 2009-10, an increase of around 37 per cent, said Narayan Sethuramon, managing director, WS Industries.

He said the company’s second unit, a greenfield project in a special economic zone (SEZ) at Visakhapatnam, that commenced operation in July last year is getting stabilised. “By next fiscal, it will reach full capacity and contribute around Rs 120 crore,” said Sethuramon.

Earlier addressing the shareholders at the annual general meeting, company chairman V Srinivasan said, “We are implementing a multi-faceted strategy for turning around the operations including changes in product mix, control on costs, particularly energy and fuel, and increase in capacity utilisation and productivity.”

Murali Venkatraman, vice chairman and managing director of the company, said “in the second half negative growth will stop due to increase in operations and profitability at Chennai and Vizag.”

Commenting on the 2009-10 performance, Srinivasan said, “We were severely affected during the year by a multiplicity of factors including a slower-than-anticipated recovery from the global financial crisis, significant drop in price realisation due to lower demand, intense competition both in the domestic and export segments and the delay in ramping up of operations at the Unit -II in Vizag.”

“We lost around Rs 50 crore last year in the bottomline due to price reduction and rupee appreciation,” he said.