Aditya Birla Nuvo returns to profit in December quarter

The December quarter has seen Aditya Birla Nuvo, a diversified company with interests in textiles, telecom, insurance and other sectors, returned to profitability on sharp growth in its manufacturing businesses and a revival in its BPO unit.

Aditya Birla Nuvo, which operates in both services as well as manufacturing industries, said on Friday that its consolidated net profit in the October-December stood at Rs8.2 crore as against a loss of Rs156.4 crore last year. Consolidated sales during the same period were up 46 per cent to Rs4,573 crore.

Chief financial officer Sushil Agarwal told The Economic Times that the growth had been across all sectors including garments and BPO, which had revived due to the company's cost saving focus.

The company, with a highly diversified portfolio, was earlier known as Indian Rayon and has a strong presence in insurance, financial services, telecom and BPO in the services space, and garments, fertilisers, carbon black as its manufacturing business. However, services account for as much as 75 per cent of its total revenue of which financial services accounts for 35 per cent.

The company said it had a total capex plan of Rs 696 crore over a couple of years of which it has already spent Rs 357 crore. Its life insurance operations require a funding of Rs 400-500 crore.

According to its earlier statement the company had said the funds for its services businesses would come from its manufacturing group businesses.

The company's manufacturing business saw its highest ever quarterly operating profit at Rs221 crore, at an operating margin of 22.4 per cent and a 34.2 percent return on average capital employed.

Also fertilisers, the other major operations of the manufacturing business witnessed higher productivity on operating profit which increased from Rs47.8 crore to Rs55.9 crore.