New orders to boost margins, reduce debt: Sterlite Tech

11263 Investors following Sterlite Optic. Share this News with them.

0

Like this story, share it with millions of investors on M3

New orders to boost margins, reduce debt: Sterlite Tech

Sterlite Technologies has bagged two orders worth Rs 225 crore from Power Grid Corp. Dr Anand Agarwal, chief executive officer and director at Sterlite Technologies, in an interview with CNBC-TV18’s Reema Tendulkar and Ekta Batra said that the company’s current order book stands at Rs 2600 crore with the new orders.

Post your opinion here

 

0

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

ALSO READ See latest News about Sterlite Optic See previous management interviews See what other Experts & Brokerages are saying about Sterlite Optic Sterlite Techno BSE | NSE 29/05/12 Are Mutual Funds betting on Sterlite Techno? Other Stocks in this news Power Grid Corporation of India |

Sterlite Technologies has bagged two orders worth Rs 225 crore from Power Grid Corp . Dr Anand Agarwal, chief executive officer and director at Sterlite Technologies, in an interview with CNBC-TV18's Reema Tendulkar and Ekta Batra said that the company's current order book stands at Rs 2,600 crore with the new orders.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: You have recently bagged quite a few orders. Could you tell us where the current order book of the company stands at?

A: The current order book stands at Rs 2600 crore. We started the quarter with close to Rs 2300 crore and we have added almost Rs 450 crore in the last 45 days.

Q: How long would this provide you revenue visibility for?

A: Bulk of these orders should get used up in the current fiscal, while some of it would push into the next fiscal as well.

Q: For the power segment in particular, how are you doing in terms of margins?

A: There are some problems in the margin but now it's improving every single quarter. So for every quarter, the margin will get better than the previous one.

Q: What are you doing in terms of an order book from the telecom segment? We understand that you had revenue visibility for around a year in the quarter gone by.

A: Yes it continues. We are continuing to be pretty bullish on the telecom segment with all the new initiatives that are happening on the broadband front both from the private side as well as from the government side. Post the 3G rollout, we are seeing good visibility and demand for optical fiber and the new government initiative will have a national optical fiber background, which will link all panchayats and villages; so it is a very good initiative.

Q: So what's the incremental order flow within the telecom segment?

A: Out of the Rs 450 crore in the telecom segment, we would have added close to about Rs 170-180 crore.

Q: Your interest cost has been fairly high. Any plans to reduce debt on the book and how much does the debt currently stand at?

A: We started the quarter with about Rs 600 crore of net debt. Bulk of it is working capital and some of it is capex debt. So, the debt would decrease by about Rs 150 by the end of the year.

Q: You have indicated that margins will be better than what you have done previously. Last year, your EBITDA margins declined by about 400 basis points, how much of an improvement can we see in this fiscal year?

A: Last year, our EBITDA was close to 10% and this year it would go between 10.5-11%. For the first half of the year, it has been lower but second half would be much stronger than that.

Q: You have some amount of exposure via exports to the US and Europe. Is there is any sort of problem or apprehension you are facing? How the business is doing there?

A: Those exports continue well. In fact, the demand from US is high. So from that perspective, what we have created in Europe and US, is giving good dividends for us and we believe it will continue to go strong going forward.

Did you miss? Sterlite Tech bags 2 orders; stock hits 52-week low