Highlights-

• During the first quarter ended June 2008 the company posted a top-line growth of 19% to Rs 415 crore as compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
• The cement sales went up by 19% to Rs 323 crore whereas the integrated sugar sales went up by 13% to Rs 69 crore.
• The Operating profit however fell by 8% to Rs 131 crore due to significant increase in various input cost.
• The company’s net profit fell by 38% to Rs 50 crore during the quarter under review mainly on account of lower other income during the quarter.
• The net realization of both the cement and the sugar division improved by 14% and 11% respectively during the first quarter ended June 2008.
• The company faced significant cost pressure due to increase in fuel prices and the increasing coal prices. However this is expected to stabilize going forward.
• The company managed to partially pass on the increase in cost to the end consumer during the previous quarter by increasing their prices.
• The net sales realization of cement during the previous quarter ended June 2008 was Rs 3,600 per metric tonne.
• Landed coal prices during the quarter ended June 2008 was Rs 5,800 / MT as against Rs 3,700 / MT during the same period last year. The current coal price is around Rs 6,000 / MT. The company’ s entire coal requirement is imported.
• The power and fuel cost of the company was Rs 950 per metric tonne as compared to Rs 650 per metric tonne during the same period last year.
• The freight cost during the quarter was Rs 700 per metric tonne.
• In the sugar division the lower availability of cane during the quarter affected production of sugar. However realizations improved to Rs 16,000 per metric tonnes.
• There has been some excess sugar inventory build up during the previous year, which as on June 2008 was 1.5 lakh metric tonnes. However since sugar production being seasonal the excess inventories would be consumed going forward.
• However cane price uncertainty still remain thus affecting the division negatively.
• The company is expanding its cement capacity by around 4.5 million metric tonnes through two green-field projects in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
• The Southern Andhra Pradesh plant with a capacity of 2.25 million metric tonnes would be commissioned by November –December 2008, whereas the Tamil Nadu project would be commissioned in first half of the financial year 2009-2010.
• Thus the standalone capacity of the company would be augmented to around 8 million metric tonnes after the commissioning of the above projects.
• The company has spent around Rs 750 crore till June 2008 for the above project and during the current year the company plans to spend around Rs 900 crore for these two Greenfield projects in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
• Besides these projects the company is also planning to put up 10 million metric tonnes of cement capacity in its subsidiary, viz. Dalmia Cement Ventures at a cost of more than US$ 1 billion.
• The company plans to put up these capacities across five plants in Rajasthan and Karnataka for which the partial land acquisition has already been done.
• Associate company OCL India’s capacity is also being expanded by 2 million metric tonnes. The current capacity of OCL India is 3 million metric tonnes out of which 1 million tonnes capacity is a grinding unit.
• Thus the combined capacity of the company including the associate company OCL India would increase to around 23 million metric tonnes by the year 2011-2012.
• The total debt in the company’s book is around Rs 1,800 crore which includes term loan of Rs 1,560 crore whereas the cash balance is Rs 406 crore