Geometric Up On Upbeat Future Forecast

The share price of Geometric Software bucked the overall weakness in the market following a positive outlook expressed by the company on its performance.

The stock closed at Rs 348.8 today on the Bombay Stock Exchange after reaching an intra-day high of Rs 355. The share ended higher by 6.41 per cent over its previous close. The share price of the engineering software company yesterday had slid by 1.6 per cent to Rs 327.80.

The stock has been in the limelight for the past few days owing to value buying, a strong financial performance in the current year and a couple of strategic alliances and joint ventures with Dassault Systemes of France and Wipro, dealers said.

From a 52-week low of Rs 53.60 on September 21, 2001, the scrip has increased by 525 per cent to Rs 335.50 today.

Geometric had recently issued a guidance for fiscal 2002 and fiscal 2003. The company has said that it will achieve revenues of around Rs 60 crore and net profit of Rs 12-13 crore for fiscal 2002. Also, the fourth quarter ended March 2002 results will be flat.

For the nine months till December 2001, the company has achieved sales of Rs 44.98 crore and a net profit of Rs 8.77 crore.

For fiscal 2003, the company has said it would achieve an average quarter-on-quarter growth of 10 per cent. Geometric has niche technologies in the $6 billion CAD/CAM/CEA market which is growing at around 11-12 per cent annually. The major user industries in the CAD/CAM/CEA market are automobiles, aerospace, heavy equipment and electronics.

Geometric had announced the formation of a joint venture last year (calendar 2001) and the same was finalised last week.

The joint venture company, to be named 3D PLM Software Solutions (3D PLM), will have an initial equity base of Rs 1.30 crore, of which Geometric and Dassault Systemes will hold 70 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively.

The new company will commence operations in February 2002, with the projects on DS Group's leading edge solutions, CATIA and ENOVIA.