Short Takes - Pharma galore

Cipla's operating profit margin vaulted to 21.4 per cent and sales by 13 per cent for the March quarter, driven by a superior product mix and growth in domestic and export formulation business. Selling more high-yielding inhalers than anti-viral drugs helped the company improve realisations. Despite paying a higher rate to the tax-man, the company's profits grew by 36.3 per cent

De-clogging arteries in the US helped Ranbaxy Laboratories post robust sales growth and high profit margins.

Ranbaxy's US sales more than doubled to $416 million. It was the biggest push for the company's 75 per cent sales growth during the quarter.

The company's Lipitor and Caduet posted encouraging growth during the quarter. Indian business grew at a more sedate 13 per cent during the quarter in rupee terms.

Higher sales of the lucrative Lipitor drug also boosted margins to 27 per cent during the quarter against 19 per cent last year. Reported net profit grew at a surprisingly breakneck rate of 97 per cent. This was in no small measure due to ‘other income' and lower tax rate.

Copper to Hindalco's rescue

Despite lower realisations on its major products such as aluminium and copper, standalone sales of Hindalco rose 12 per cent during the March 12 quarter compared with the same period a year ago. A stronger rupee and marginally higher volumes aided this. Operating profits, however, took a hit on account of coal prices which averaged 20 per cent higher. Net profits dipped sharply by 10 per cent as the company's tax outgo rose by 76 per cent.

Despite producing close to 12 per cent more value-added products, the company's aluminium operations' higher power bill lowered the segment operating profits by 14 per cent. Copper saved the day (rather quarter) as the company's smelting operations earned a higher fee for processing copper. Higher realisations on by-products such as gold and sulphuric acid also chipped in leading to a 42 per cent surge in operating profits for the segment

Mixed bag for PNB

Punjab National Bank's (PNB) results for the March quarter were rather lacklustre. Gross non-performing assets of the bank rose by 35 per cent during the quarter. This is despite provisioning a 62 per cent higher figure for non-performing assets (NPA) than in the previous quarter. The company's net NPA ratio rose to 1.52 per cent.

Restructured loans jumped by an additional Rs 8,100 crore.

This took the entire outstanding restructured portfolio to Rs 25,000 crore. Loans to power and aviation segments witnessed higher levels of restructuring. Around 8.8 per cent of the restructured assets have become non-performing.

The year 2010-11 has been a prolific one in terms of having to restructure debt gone sour.

The bank has other concerns too. Despite growing its loan book by 21 per cent, its net interest income grew in single digits. There has also been little relief from the CRR cut. High deposit rates also hurt. The bank did keep its operating expenses on a leash with the cost-to-income ratio declining to 36 per cent. Lower operating expenses, treasury profits and marked-to-market gains on the investment book aided the net profit growth of 18 per cent.

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