The absolute operating profit as a result increased 119% to Rs 34.46 crore. After providing for other finance charges the PBT of the company stood at Rs 30.26 crore, which was 138% higher compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The net profit however increased significantly by 238% during the quarter to Rs 20.91 crore due to lower effective tax rate.

Performance for the quarter and year ended March 2009-

Quarter ended March 2009-

The company managed to improve its performance during the 4^th quarter ended March 2009 backed primarily by its engineering division, which posted excellent growth in sales during the quarter under review. The total revenue increased by 31% to Rs 119.68 crore. The engineering division managed to post a growth of 67% during the quarter to Rs 62.17 crore whereas the cement division posted a 1% fall in revenue to Rs 67.1 crore during the quarter. Throughout the first three quarters of the previous fiscal, the company had to bear the brunt of high input cost as a result of which the OPM remained lower. However significant fall in raw material cost as well as the power & fuel cost during the 4^th quarter helped the company to improve its OPM margin significantly to 28.8% as compared to 17.2% during the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

The absolute operating profit as a result increased 119% to Rs 34.46 crore. Other income of the company increased significantly to Rs 2.69 crore as compared to just Rs 38 lakh during the same quarter of the previous year. After providing for interest cost and the depreciation allowance which increased by 25% and 10%, the PBT before EO of the company posted a growth of 161% to Rs 33.20 crore during the quarter ended March 2009. There was an EO expense for the company of Rs 2.94 crore during the quarter. Thus the PBT after EO stood at Rs 30.26 crore, which was 138% higher compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The effective tax rate fell to 31% as compared to 51% during the corresponding previous year quarter. Thus the company posted a net profit of Rs 20.91 crore quarter ended March 2009, which was higher by 238% compared to the same period last year.

Year ended March 2009-

For the full year ended March 2009, the performance was disappointing with just a flat growth in revenue as compared to the previous fiscal. Revenue grew by 2% to Rs 353.94 crore of which the engineering division revenue fell by 10% to Rs 146.26 crore, whereas the cement sales increased by 3% to Rs 249.63 crore during the year under review.

The OPM fell by 110 bps to 30.1% mainly due to significant increase in power & fuel cost which increased due to high cost of coal. Thus the absolute operating profit fell 2% to Rs 106.52 crore during the year ended March 209. After providing for interest cost and depreciation allowance the PBT before EO increased by 6% to Rs 103.30 crore. The PBT after considering the EO expenses of Rs 5.45 crore increased by just 1% to Rs 97.85 crore during the year ended March 2009. Higher effective tax resulted in the net profit of the company posting a fall of 1% during the year under review to Rs 65.92 crore.

For the group as a whole the consolidated top-line grew by 6% to Rs 547.32 crore. The OPM fell marginally by 20 bps revenue as a result the operating profit increased by 7% to Rs 154.55 crore during the year ended March 2009. After providing for the other finance charges and the tax expenses the bottom-line increased by 1% to Rs 81.16 crore during the financial year ended March 2009.

The company declared a final dividend of 25% on paid up capital of the company during the year ended March 2009. Thus the total dividend during the year including the interim dividend of 75% (Rs 7.50 per share) paid during the year was 100%.

Further subject to the approval of the share holders in the ensuing Annual General Meeting the company has approved the reclassification of existing authorized capital of Rs 55,00,00,000/-comprising of 5,50,00,000 Equity shares of Rs 10/- each into 2,00,00,000 Equity shares of Rs 10/- each and 3,50,00,000 unclassified shares of Rs 10/- each with power to the board to classify, reclassify the share capital into any class of shares.

The promoters currently hold around 46.26% of the equity in the company as on March 2009.

The scrip of the company is currently trading at Rs 309 on the BSE.