The company made the announcement after market hours on Friday, 14 March 2014.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 159.12 points, or 0.73%, to 21,968.92.

On BSE, so far 97,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 3.04 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 53.60 and a low of Rs 51.55 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 87.20 on 14 March 2013. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 35 on 2 August 2013.

The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 14 March 2014, rising 8.21% compared with the Sensex's 7.08% rise. The scrip had, however, underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 1.81% as against Sensex's 5.28% rise.

The small-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 70.45 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

As per the terms of the Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) scheme, Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals (Orchid) will sell and transfer its Penicillin and Penems (including Carbapenems) API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) business together with its manufacturing facilities at Aurangabad, Maharashtra and Associated Research and Development (R&D) facility at Sholinganallur, Chennai.

Orchid will repay (Rs 681 crore) a portion of the total debt to lenders out of the sale proceeds and restructure the balance debt (Rs 2866 crore). The company will carve out a portion of sale proceeds for meeting the working capital requirements of the company.

The company will get interest funding for the first two years from the cut-off date (1 April 2013) for interest on term debts and one year for interest on working capital borrowings.

The restructured debt together with funded loans would have to be repaid over a period of 8 years starting from April 2015 subject to regulatory approvals.

The restructuring process would be implemented by an appointed Monitoring Committee (MC) of CDR lenders, the company said in a statement.

"The approval of the Corporate Debt Restructuring Package would facilitate completion of the Penicillin and Carbapenem API Business Transfer to Hospira and also bring in working capital availability from the deal proceeds besides deleveraging the debt profile. With this the Company would be on a better platform to achieve improved performance going forward," said Mr K Raghavendra Rao, Chairman & Managing Director, Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals.

Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals reported a net loss of Rs 53.90 crore in the quarter ended 31 December 2013, lower than net loss of Rs 72.36 crore in the quarter ended 31 December 2012. Revenue rose 19% to Rs 371.60 crore in the quarter ended 31 December 2013 over the quarter ended 31 December 2012.

Orchid had extended its last financial year (FY) 2012-13 by six months to 30 September 2013. Consequently, the current FY 2013-14 will consist of only six months i.e. from 1 October 2013 to 31 March 2014.

Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals is involved in the development, manufacture and marketing of diverse bulk activities, formulations and nutraceuticals.