See FY10 EPS around Rs 15-16: Manaksia

Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview. Also watch the video.

Q: You have already done about Rs 56 crore of profit after tax (PAT) in the first half for just under Rs 10 per share. What do you think you can achieve in the full fiscal year 2010 in terms of profits and earnings per share?

A: We would definitely be doing the same amount of growth what we have maintained in the last couple of years. Last year we had a topline of Rs 1,300 crore and a bottomline of Rs 110 crore. This year we would be exceeding. In fact if you see the last six months results, our bottomline was Rs 59 crore but that represents 10% of the profit and in last year it was only 8% of the sales. So, we are definitely doing better than what we had done last year.

Q: So you have already done about Rs 10 per share in EPS for the first half of FY10. What do you think you could do by the end?

A: I am sure there is something wrong. Our EPS was not Rs 10, it should be around Rs 14.98 or something like that.

Q: What will the full year EPS look like?

A: I think the full year’s EPS will be around Rs 15-16. I am not sure about the exact figure. But definitely, we will be doing better than what we had done in the last year.

Q: The promoters have been picking up some amount of stake from the open market, not a huge percentage, but you have been buying––any specific reason behind it?

A: We had just picked up less than 1% or may be 1% because we got the window of going for creeping acquisition upto 5%; our holding in the company was only 58%. We thought that why not to use this window when it is available to us.

Q: You said you would cross Rs 1,300 crore in terms of revenues this year, do you expect to hold that 10% net profit margin that you have seen in the first half in which case your profits will be higher than Rs 130 crore for the current year?

A: No, we may not be able to use that magical figure of Rs 1,300 which we had done last year. The reason for that is the prices of metal has gone down substantially, say LME for aluminum, which used to be around 2,400 at an average last year, which has dropped down to 1,800. The same goes for CRC, which is for raw materials, there the prices are down at least by 30-35%. We may not be able to achieve the Rs 1,300 figure, but yes in terms of total profitability we might be achieving the same of what we had done last year.

Q: What is your margin profile looking like in the metal products business, given the prices that you indicated in the crowns closures, metal products business?

A: In fact, crown closures and packaging business, our EBITDA margins are around 16-18%. Of course as you know that the packaging business is not a very huge business in our portfolio, value added metal products is contributing more on our topline. There the margins of profits are around 12-13% EBITDA margins.

Q: How structured is this part of your business in terms of what the market looks like and what would you hold in terms of market share?

A: In market share, in packaging we will be definitely doing much better than what we had done. In the recent past, we have refocused, we have added some more products and in metal segment, in fact in India, whatever we were doing we will be doing the same. Our major thrust today is in Africa, our thrust is in CIS country, in Nigeria we are doing quite well, in Georgia we have already started, one of our first phase of our steel plant is already gone in to production and the second stage of the production will be starting in the first week of January or something like that.