India“s Piramal Enterprises expects net profits to rise by 30% this year on strong growth in its pharmaceutical and glass manufacturing businesses, its chairman said.
“This year (April 1999-March 20…
India“s Piramal Enterprises expects net profits to rise by 30% this year on strong growth in its pharmaceutical and glass manufacturing businesses, its chairman said. “This year (April 1999-March 2000) we will be growing almost 30% mainly from pharmaceuticals while our glass units will probably grow by 50%,” Ajay Piramal said. A figure for the previous year was not available. Piramal was in Colombo following his Gujarat Glass Ltd.“s acquisition of a 46% stake in Ceylon Glass Co. Ltd., Sri Lanka“s main manufacturer of glass containers and bottles. He said Gujarat Glass will use its strategic investment to turn the Sri Lankan venture into its main exporting arm to sell glass containers to Southeast Asia and Australia. Piramal said exports from the company“s Indian units, which produced some five million bottles per day, were not viable because of high transport costs caused by port congestion. He said the alliance would not be used to supply glass containers to pharmaceutical arm Nicholas Piramal India Ltd., but added investments in pharmaceuticals in Sri Lanka may be considered if the glass venture was a success. “This year we will increase our presence in our established pharmaceutical operations both in India and abroad,” Piramal said. Nicholas Piramal reported a 19% increase in its net for three months to June 1999 at Rs 114.5 million on a sales turnover of Rs 1.128 billion against Rs 96.1 million on sales of Rs 1.01 billion in the same period last year. Piramal said the company was seeing good growth locally and abroad in its Ayurveda businesses, while research in herbal plants was expected to bear fruit in the “near future.” “We are also doing studies into basic molecules.” Piramal said the company also wanted to step up a joint venture insurance operations with European partners as soon as the Indian market was opened up. The insurance sector in India is state controlled and reforms have stalled since 1994. The last abortive attempt to pass liberalizing laws would have allowed 26% foreign ownership of local insurers. Piramal said information technology and leisure and shopping malls were emerging businesses for the group. “We feel there is future growth for the company from information technology and life-style plazas,” he said.