Diversified business conglomerate Murugappa group, which owns listed companies like Coromandel International, EID Parry and Tube Investments of India, has reported 32% growth in net profit to Rs 1,283 crore for the fiscal ended March, compared to Rs 971 crore in the previous fiscal, driven largely by the financial services business.
Turnover grew 11% to Rs 26,926 crore compared to Rs 24,350 crore and Ebitda grew 11% to Rs 2,921 crore against Rs 2,627 crore in the previous year.
Addressing a press conference to announce the group’s annual performance, MM Murugappan, vice-chairman, said: “Despite a challenging fiscal, the group, largely driven by the financial services and engineering businesses, could post healthy growth both in terms of profit as well as turnover. We are optimistic and hope to perform well in the current fiscal too.” profit before tax grew 26% to Rs 1,780 crore against Rs 1,415 crore in the previous fiscal, he added.
In respose to a question, N Srinivasan, group finance director, said: “Financial services businesses such as Cholamandalam Investment and Cholamandalam MS General insurance together contributed over 45% to the total profits, i.e., around Rs 578 crore, with the rest coming from Tube Investments of India, Coromandel International among other businesses.”
The group will be investing Rs 250 crore in the current fiscal to increase capacity utilisation in the manufacturing businesses from 60%, given the pick-up in demand across automotive, engineering and abrasives segments. As part of its growth plans, retail arm Cholamandalam Investments is expected to raise Rs 4,000 crore during the fiscal, mainly though debt. The company has an AUM of Rs 25,453 crore and reported 20% growth in profit to Rs 435 crore last fiscal.
Murugappan said the group’s market cap increased sharply to Rs 30,974 crore from Rs 20,502 crore last fiscal. The debt-equity ratio has come down to 0.41%. He further said the company was setting up a new bicycle unit at Rajpura (Punjab) with an initial capacity to make 1.5 million units per annum, which will be scaled up later.
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