KOLKATA, Aug 7: Registering all-round growth during the first quarter of the current financial year, Britannia Industries Limited(BIL), India’s leading producer of bakery and dairy products, has posted a consolidated revenue growth of 12 per cent to Rs 1348.20 crore and an 18.4 per cent jump in net profit margin(Rs 46.50 crore) till June 30 this year.
Announcing the Q-1 financial results of the Rs 5,500 crore company after its 93rd Annual General Meeting with the share holders here yesterday, BIL Managing Director Vinita Bali told reporters following intense focus on strengthening the shape of business, the company’s operating margin had increased to an unprecedented 120 basis points during the April-June, 2012 period.
This was much higher compared to the whole of last fiscal(2011-12) when BIL’s Operating Margin touched only about 80 basis points, Ms Bali said.
Referring to the priority areas of the company whose more than 20 per cent product portfolios were being dispatched to over 40 countries worldwide every year, Ms Bali said they comprised top class revenue management, cost management and product innovation.
“All these together are aimed at improving the operational performance of all products of BIL which include biscuits, bread, cake, rusk and dairy products,” she said.
Claiming that the recent launch of a number of new products like Bourbon Cappuccino and a new range of creamy falvoured Treat biscuits had been well accepted by customers across the country, she said this was also reflected in the eleven per cent growth in standalone revenue of BIL to Rs 1221.60 crore during the Q1 period.
About her plans for the future growth and the related investments, Ms Bali said they had recently commissioned two ‘three lanes capacity’ Green Field projects in Patna and at Khurda in Odisha at a cost of Rs 50 crore each to give a further boost to production.
‘We are also adding one more such plant at Jaguria in Gujarat within the next few months with similar cost to take the total number of BIL’s production facilities to nearly 70 across the country and abroad,’ the MD informed.
On the query about the Wadhia Group’s financial stake in the company which had now been increased to 51 per cent with the shareholders approval, Ms Bali said the partner (Wadhia Group) had been providing the entire legal and some professional assistance to the BIL.
Accordingly they were now being paid upto 0.1 per cent as their share for Royalty and another maximum 0.25 per cent as for their professional services to BIL.
Claiming that the share of BIL’s business was almost on equal footing in both the Rural and Urban Indian market, Ms Bali said in order to further reduce the operational cost, they had now decided to pay more attention to the conservation of energy in terms of electricity savings and had gradually shifted focus to different forms of clear fuel and their easy availability.
‘Accordingly, we are now using more and more bio gas, bio mass, LPG and PNG fuel in our different plants and hope to bring down the company’s energy cost quite considerably in the coming months,’ she said and hoped to see a positive results from the next quarter itself.
On the BIL’s export front which had been growing at the rate of 20 per cent on Year-on-year basis, Ms Bali said with the addition of several new products they hoped to improve the last year’s overseas turnover of about Rs 300 crore substantially with main focus remaining on bakery and dairy products. (UNI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel
