Ambuja Cements net up 4-fold at Rs 337 cr

BS 200 SCORECARD

Ambuja Cements, formerly Gujarat Ambuja Cements, has posted almost four-fold increase in its net profit at Rs 337.76 crore for the quarter ended December31, 2006, compared with Rs 87.9 crore in the corresponding quarter last financial year. Net sales grew 71.91 per cent to Rs 1,329.1 crore as against Rs 773.15 crore.

The quarter saw the company's operating profit rising by 167 per cent to Rs 519.33 crore as against Rs 194.46 crore in the corresponding previous quarter. Earning per share (EPS) for the quarter stood at Rs 2.32 compared with Rs 0.65 last year. The company sold 4.12 million tonne of cement during the quarter under review as opposed to 3.42 mt in the year-ago period, up 20 per cent.

The cement major had changed its financial year in 2005 to end on December 31. Accordingly, the current financial year is for a period of 18 months, starting July 1, 2005, to December 31, 2006.

During the period, the company posted a net profit of 1,503.25 crore where as net sales stood at Rs 6,268.29 crore. Operating profit was Rs 2,246.75 crore and the EPS stood at Rs 10.12.

The group's consolidated net profit stood at Rs 1,664.69 crore for the year ended December 31, 2006 and total income at Rs 6,488.83 crore.

However, the consolidated figures do not include results of Ambuja Cement India (ACIL), Ambuja Cement Eastern (ACEL), Kakinada Cements and Cement Ambuja International as all of them have ceased to be subsidiaries of the company.

The company is in the process of increasing its cement capacity through brown field expansions to 22 million tonne per annum from the existing 16 million tonne by 2009.

It is setting up tow grinding plants with a capacity of 1 million each in West Bengal and Uttaranchal. Both are expected to be commissioned within the next three months time. The company is also upgrading its cement plant at Rabriyawas in Rajasthan, by hiking its clinker capacity to 2 million tonne from the existing 1.5 million tonne. A second clinker unit in Chhattisgarh is also being established which will be commissioned in 2009.

Apart from this, the company will be investing Rs 3,350 crore in setting up clinkering, grinding and captive power plants. A new clinkering plant in Himachal Pradesh and one grinding unit each in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana with a combined capacity of 3 million tonne are being set up. These units will be commissioned by the second quarter of 2009.

Thermal power plants of an aggregate capacity of 178 mw are also being set up. These are likely to be completed by the end of 2008. Once the power plants go on stream, the company's total captive power generation capacity will go cross 400 mw.