JK Tyre & Industries posts Rs59.51 crore profit for July-September quarter

JK Tyre & Industries has posted a profit after tax of Rs59.51 crore for the quarter ended 30 September on improved overall cost management. The company had reported a corresponding period loss of Rs32.3 crore last fiscal, the company said in a release.

Net sales during the quarter also jumped 11.82 per cent to Rs973.70 crore from Rs870.76 crore in the year-ago period.

The turnaround has come from 'all round cost management and better operational efficiencies' of the firm, according to vice-chairman and managing director Raghupati Singhania.
 
The company has plans for large-scale investments in Karnataka, which will include expansion of the existing facility in Mysore as also a new plant, which, according to sources is most likely to come up in the state.
 
The investment will be to the tune of Rs1,200 crore over the next two years for setting up of a radial tyre manufacturing plant for both trucks as well as passenger cars. Sources say, the investment will come in two stages of roughly Rs600 crore each for which around 100 acres of land would be required. Power and water requirement is estimated at 12 MW and 2 million liters of water per day.

The sources say that Nanjangud near Mysore is a keen contender for the plant on account of its proximity to the existing plant in Mysore. According to company sources, the other options available include Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Apart from the new plant, the company is also investing Rs130 crore toward the expansion of the facility for manufacture of off-the-road (OTR) tyres.
 
JK Tyre has already invested around Rs315 crore for the expansion of the existing facility for the manufacture of 8 lakh tyres per annum and this new capacity.

JK Tyre manufactures the entire range of tyres for all categories of four wheelers. Its range includes 'Off the Road' (OTR) tyres and has leading brands in JK Tyre, Vikrant and Tornel. Vikrant is the largest manufacturing facility in Mysore, in both turnover and number of people employed terms.

In 1996, Vikrant Tyre output was 100 tonnes per day with a turnover of Rs350 crore. The plants located in Mysore today produce around 3 times the tonnage per day, which will be further enhanced from March 2010.