Grasim Q4 net up marginally at Rs818 crore

Aditya Birla Group flagship Grasim Industries has reported a net profit of Rs818 crore for fiscal fourth quarter (January-March 2013), a marginal 1 per cent rise compared to last year's Rs809 crore.

Net revenue for the quarter was up 5 per cent at Rs7,672 crore against Rs7,283 crore reported a year ago, despite a difficult business environment.

For the full financial year April 2012- March 2013) Grasim saw its net profit rise 2 per cent to Rs2,704 crore from Rs2,647 crore during the previous fiscal.

Net revenue for the year stood at Rs27,904 crore, up 11 per cent from Rs25,245 crore reported a year earlier.

Going forward, the company said it expects sales volumes in the quarters ahead to rise with expansions under way.

''Our cement and VSF businesses, both are focused on domestic front. In the cement industry, demand has grown 4.5 per cent and in VSF, demand has grown 5 per cent,'' Adesh Gupta, wholetime director and chief financial officer of Grasim, said. ''And the fortune of cement is very closely linked to the economic growth.''

Grasim, which started off as a textile manufacturer in 1947, later diversified into VSF and cement that now account for most of the company's revenue. It is also into production of chemicals such as caustic soda.

''The quarter witnessed continuing pressure on input and logistics cost, given the increase in railway freight and the hike in diesel prices, though there was some relief on account of the softening in prices of imported coal,'' the company said in a release.

During the January-March 2013 quarter, the company made several expansions. Its brownfield VSF expansion at Harihar in Karnataka was completed with the commissioning of phase II (18,250 tonnes per annum); the greenfield project of VSF (120,000 tonnes per annum) at Vilayat in Gujarat is nearing completion and is expected to go on stream in the second quarter.

The company's cement unit, UltraTech, is implementing projects across locations. Aditya Cement Works in Rajasthan is being expanded by 2.90 million tonnes per annum, which also envisages a plan outlay of Rs2,000 crore. The additional capacity is expected to be commissioned by March 2015.

Gupta said in the current fiscal the company planned to spend Rs5,200 crore in expansion and new projects.