Wockhardt has announced its fourth quarter results. The company’s Q4 consolidated net sales were up at Rs 762 crore (Rs 7.62 billion) versus Rs 526.40 crore (Rs 5.26 billion). Its consolidated net profit was up at Rs 106.90 crore (Rs 1.06 billion) from Rs 87.10 crore (Rs 871 million).
Habil F Khorakiwala, Chairman of Wockhardt said that he feels that Wockhardt’s EBIDTA margin of 24% is sustainable, going forward. He expects sales to grow by over 20% in 2008, he told CNBC-TV18. Khorakiwala is disappointed about the IPO withdrawal and is looking at ways to raise funds. Wockhardt will hold an EGM shortly to decide on the future of their R&D arm, he added.
Excerpts from CNBC-TV18’s exclusive interview with Habil F Khorakiwala:
Q: Give us one word on the EBITDA performance you have had this quarter whether that can be sustained and what happened in terms of sales from Cetrizine in specific?
A: I think the kind of EBITDA you see today is something, which is sustainable at about more than 24%. In fact for the whole year EBITDA increased by about 100 bps. This is in spite of the fact that we acquired new companies Negma and Montenegro and Pinewood and all of them had much lower EBITDA. So this is what it reflects; is really a turnaround we have been able to do very quickly in 2007 - more offers will definitely come in 2008.
As far as Cetrizine is concerned, we would be in the market - we are manufacturing it against specific orders and we would be supplying in the US market sometime in March-April period.
Q: In that light what is the outlook that you can offer investors for the next coming few quarters particularly in terms of consolidation of the new entities or the acquisitions you have made?
A: Q4 practically reflects the activities of our entire organization including all new acquisitions and for last three consecutive quarters, we have shown a net profit of more than 100 crore. I am sure the level of growth one would see in net profit would continue more or less at the same level of 14%-15% on total gross sales.
We expect sales to continue to grow at around more than 20% during 2008.
Q: What is the plan now for Wockhardt Hospitals as also for your R&D arm and are you disappointed about the way things went about in the past fortnight?
A: Yes, certainly we are disappointed about our Wockhardt Hospitals; somehow we have got sucked into a storm when the market fluctuation was there and we decided to withdraw it in the long-term interest of all investors and the company.
Our future plan is that we are in a process of reviewing the options available to us. So we have not taken a view yet on it probably I think we will take a view in next two-four weeks.
We are just meeting in the EGM to take a view on R&D. So R&D demerger will achieve a few purposes. It will have the drug discovery portfolio and innovative patented technologies which takes three-four years and what we will achieve is with the innovative technology, the profits and revenue will start flowing in next three-four years whereas a drug discovery will take a little longer time and we are also looking for outlicensing. We thought we can really forecast on developing research - R&D approach. We believe that there are great opportunities in the R&D space.
Link to article: http://indiaearnings.moneycontrol.com/sub_india/compnews.php?autono=327086
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