Grasim FY 06 profit up 18 pc, proposes 200 pc dividend

Mumbai, Apr 27 (UNI) The Aditya Birla group's bluechip and flagship company Grasim Industries Limited has finalised a Rs 6,000 crore investment plan spread over two years for its cement business, involving setting up of a greenfield plant, expanding the capacity of its existing one and modernising, de-bottlenecking and setting up of captive power plants, a grinding unit and RMC units.

The company's board of directors has also recommended a dividend of 200 per cent as against the 160 per cent declared last year which involves a payout for the company of Rs 209 crore inclusive of corporate tax on dividend, an increase of 25 per cent over the dividend paid last year.

Declaring the company's s FY 06 results here today, the company's whole-time director D D Rathi said that Grasim was setting up a four million TPA greenfield plant at Kotputli in Rajasthan and expanding the capacity of its existing plant at Shambhupura, also in Rajasthan, besides adding a split grinding unit of a total capacity of four million TPA ''This will entail an investment of around Rs 2,475 crore, which includes the cost of setting up of thermal power plants at both these places and the expansion will enable the company to cater to the increasing demand in the northern region,'' he said.

In a move to further sharpen its competitive edge in the marketplace, Grasim will be investing an additional Rs 1,261 crore over the next two years, on modernising and de-bottlenecking initiatives besides setting up a grinding unit at Dadri.

The Aditya Birla group's other cement company UltraTech, acquired from L&T a few years ago, has also lined up a capex of Rs1,520 crore towards setting up a new power plant, de-bottlenecking and modernisation of its processes. ''This amount will be spread over the next three years,'' Mr Rathi said.

UltraTech has also earmarked an investment of Rs 810 crore for setting up a 142 MW power plant and Rs 160 crore for setting up RMC units, he said.

Highlighting the fact that the company's turnover crossed the Rs 10,000 crore mark for the first time in its history in FY 06 at Rs 10,200.3 crore, reflecting a 10 per cent increase over last year's figure, Mr Rathi said that net profit too increased by a healthy 18 per cent at Rs 1,039 crore as against Rs 880.4 crore in FY 05.

On a stand-alone basis for Q4, Grasim clocked a 11 per cent rise in its revenues at Rs 1,815 crore while net profit shot up by 14 per cent at Rs 263 crore.

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