Browsing Category: "Corporate Results"
HYDERABAD/KOLKATA: In what would be a further blow for West Bengal’s industrialization plans, India’s fourth-largest software exporter Satyam Computer Services, after dilly-dallying for the last four years, has decided to quit Kolkata.
A decision to not go forward with its proposed software development centre at Salt Lake’s Sector V, Kolkata’s IT hub, was taken at a high-level internal meeting last week. But the move is yet to be formalized and the company’s decision hasn’t so far been communicated to the West Bengal government.
According to internal Satyam sources, the company feels that the piece of land allocated to it in Salt Lake is low-lying and amenable to water logging, especially during monsoons. “Therefore, as such, it is not suitable for establishing a software development centre,” a company source said. Satyam had been allocated 2.77 acres at Salt Lake for the software development centre. On its part, though, the Bengal government still expressed confidence that Satyam would not give up on Kolkata.
“We have no reason to believe that the company wants to back out of the city because it has always appeared genuinely interested in setting up a presence in Kolkata during the frequent interactions we have had with them. We are even offering Satyam land near Vedic Village at Rajarhat (where Infosys and Wipro are each being given 90 acres) for setting up an IT SEZ which it is keen to establish,” West Bengal IT minister Debesh Das said.
In July, Satyam had expressed interest in setting up an IT SEZ in Kolkata. As per norms, a company needs a minimum land area of 25 acres to establish an IT SEZ. “As for Sector V, our assessment is that Satyam is waiting for some more clarity on the extension of the STPI scheme so that it can take a call on how it can make use of the land allotted to it there,”Das said. The STPI scheme, which confers a host of fiscal benefits to IT units nationwide, is supposed to expire on March 31, 2010.
The MoU between Satyam and Webel (the West Bengal government agency responsible for promoting IT investments) for setting up the Kolkata facility was signed on January 30, 2004, in the presence of Satyam chairman B Ramalinga Raju and West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Hyderabad. The foundation stone for the Kolkata project was laid on February 24, 2006.
Though Satyam had announced that it proposed to create a facility at Salt Lake that would be able to employ 2000 associates, the plans never got off. But, periodically, the company has been assuring the West Bengal government that it was “serious” about Kolkata.
HUL has announced its first quarter results. The company’s Q1 net profit was up 16.5% at Rs 380.9 crore from Rs 327.08 crore, YoY.
Its net sales were up 19.1% at Rs 3,793.9 crore from Rs 3,184.3 crore. YoY.
Its EBITDA was up 11.9% to Rs 407.80 crore from Rs 364.5 crore.
EBITDA Margin: At 10.75% Vs 11.45% (Fall of 75 bps)
Highlights
- Sales growth led by Volume growth of 10.2%; rest 8.9% price growth
- The company raised prices in Q1 in soaps & fabric wash segment
- Some price correction in toilet soaps initiated in April, basically passing on excise duty cuts & also a pre-emptive move ahead of competition
- Financial year changed to April- March; from calendar year. To have 15 mth financial year
Segmental Growth
HPC : Grew at 21.2% on YoY basis, but flat growth on QoQ
Soaps & Detergents grew 19.9% YoY, 2.9% QoQ
Personal Products grew 23.5% YoY, but slipped 4.3% QoQ
Beverages grew 11.2% YoY, 5.5% QoQ
Non-HPC: Grew At 16.4% YoY, 7.3% QoQ
PBIT Margins
Expansion seen in HPC segment with both Soaps and Detergents & Personal Products showing good margin expansion
Margin slippages in Foods & Beverages segment
Ice Cream segment posting Negative growth
The Hindustan Zinc stock was up 13.3 per cent on Firday on a seven-fold increase in trading volumes as the company reported higher-than-expected results for the fourth quarter.
The company’s net sales for the quarter ended March 2008 were up 12 per cent to Rs 2,266 crore, while net profit went up 37 per cent to Rs 1,280 crore.
Zinc sales at 1.38 lakh tonnes, up 44 per cent, and lead sales at 17,000 tonnes, a rise of 36 per cent, offset the impact of a 30 per cent decline in LME zinc prices and a 10 per cent appreciation of the rupee against the dollar.
The company has plans to increase its capacity of zinc and lead. The mineral major also has plans to expand its ore production at the Rampura Agucha mine from 5 million tonnes to 6 million tonnes to support the increase in smelting capacities, A 160-mw captive thermal power plant is also on the anvil in Rajpura Dariba. The project is expected to be completed by June 2010.
Markets ended off day’s high in later part of the day although Nifty managed to close at 5000 mark. Sensex ended up 23 points at 16721. It was down 125 points from day’s high. Nifty ended down 23 pts at 5000 down 72 points from day’s high. CNX Midcap Index was down 0.8%, BSE Small-cap Index was down 0.7%. Steel stocks ended down as govt says looking at proposal to put steel under essential commodities.
BSE Metal Index was down 1.2%. Nalco down 3.9%, Sterlite down 3.5%, Tata Steel down 2.65%. BSE IT Index was up 1.7%; Infosys up 2.9%, Satyam up 2.14%, Wipro up 1.5%. Results Imapcted ACC down 5.5%, Maruti down 2.35%, HDFC Bank down 0.2%. Profit booking seen in Gati, KPIT Cummins, Essel Propack, Praj Ind, DCB. NSE Advance Decline was at 2:3. Total market turnover was at Rs 71896 crore Vs Rs 73246 crore yesterday. Nifty futures turnover was at Rs 50958 crore Vs Rs 52108 crore yesterday.
FNO Snapshot
Market wide rollover was in line. Nifty rollover was better than last month, Markey wide rollover was over 73%. Last month was at 78%. NIfty at 65% Vs 61% in yesterdays trade. For Last month Nifty rollover was 60%. Nifty rollover did not pick up today from yesterday as lack of aggressive long rollers. Cement, Banks and Metals did see strong rollovers. Sugar, Power and Auto rolls remain low. Some profit booking was seen in the last hour.
Stocks In News
HOEC was down 7% at 141. It opened offer at 144, Polaris was down 6.26%. It defer buyback plan. Media Vedio was up 20%. Market talk of listing of MVL, infra arm in a month. Oudh Sigat on 10% upper circuit for 2nd consecutive day.
ASIA Today
Asian markets end mixed but Chinese market surge, Shanghai was up nearly 10% as Chinese authorities cuts tax on trdaing on stocks from 0.3% to 0.1%, Hong Kong stocks was up 1.5%, Jakarata Index was down 2%, Straits Times, Nikkei, Thailand ended in the red.
Global News
European markets weak as German business confidence dropped to the lowest level in more than 2 years, Credit~Suisse Reports Q1 Loss Of $ 2.1 billion after $ 5.2 billion write-down. Credit Suisse Posts Q1 Loss for the first time in almost five years
Taiwan Flows
Among Taiwan markets FIIs were net seller on equities worth $ 343 million in today’s trade (Prov), FIIs sold equities worth $ 743 milion in last 3 days inclusding today.
Technology sector is being the big disappointment. TCS came in as a bit of a shocker this quarter round. Stock has been punished for that still down about 9% and taking the entire IT index down with that, down almost 5% for the CNX IT.
Bhavin Shah of JP Morgan said that the Q4 results were below expectations and suddenly we had to cut our 2009 and 2010 estimates by just over 3%. The financial segment is having an impact little bit moreso on TCS than the companies.
He said that he is not sure if to separate out TCS in the sense that TCS is going to have a significantly different performance from rest of the IT sector. In fact, most companies have talked about cautious outlook for June quarter and TCS has talked about pretty strong order pipeline. So there isn’t any specific issue with TCS. It is clearly much more of a issue that industry is facing that we have previously talked about.
He further said that companies with big franchises and experience to deal with a pace of slowdown, the larger companies like Infosys, TCS are still in a better shape. He think that Satyam is going to grow at a faster pace than these two companies so is Cognizant, which is US listed. In a difficult environment though, midcap companies stand to face more difficult challenges as the customers try to consolidate a bit unless they have a specific niche whether it is a geographical focus that is different or whether it is a product or service focus that is different. But otherwise the main big cap names like Infosys, TCS have dealt with this sort of slowdown before. So he expect them to handle it pretty well.
He said that he was surprised on the downside by the EPS growth guidance by Satyam and think that the company is suddenly looking at some pressures on margins and perhaps being a little bit conservative as well. But as expected their revenue growth, they are certainly enjoying its faster growth momentum compared with Infosys and TCS.
About the expectation of Infosys for the last 9 months, he said that it is more uncertain this time and that is a better way to put it. He is not sure if we have seen the worst of the financial sector crisis. So the slowdown could prolong beyond June quarter. That is certainly a possibility for that and that is why he would not buy into this idea that everybody knows that the first quarter is weak but then it is going to be fine after that. He feels that it is not clear yet.
He further said that TCS has delivered a really strong performance over last three years, so the quality of their business is very strong. The customer feedback about TCS has always been very consistent and positive so don’t see any reason for a material valuation gap.
