See good growth in Q4: Parenteral Drugs

Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with Anil Mittal on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: Could throw some light on this decision of yours for acquiring about 35 million shares of Mascareignes? What is the current holding that you have in the company in terms of percentage?

A: We are holding 51% shares with management control. It is the only company in Mauritius producing pharmaceuticals. When we got to know of this opportunity the present management accepted to play a minority role and we have recently received the Prime Minister’s Office approval in Mauritius for acquiring this 51% equity stake in that company.

Q: Would you eventually plan to take it up to 100% and acquire the company as such?

A: As of today those plans are still not there, but the local partners will also add strength to the business, so we intend to go along with them.

Q: You have another development as far as the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Kenyan based company Taurus Export is concerned, tell us how does this help you as far as your geographical reach is concerned? What percentage of your revenues come from the exports market currently?

A: We have been a domestic centric company all these years. As far as the export revenues are concerned, they were hardly 10-12% till about a year or so. But this year the revenues are expected to grow by a few percentage points. But now with the acquisition of the Mauritius company we are going whole hog for the overseas markets and our strategy is that we want to setup the manufacturing facilities in these markets and then take the marketing from there onwards. With Mauritius, we are looking at the southern African markets and with Kenya and Nairobi we are looking at the eastern African markets, the central Africa and North African markets.

Q: Getting back to Mascareignes, what does it bring on table for you in terms of revenue visibility, how big is the Mauritian market?

A: The Mauritian market if we see it individually, it’s not quite a big market. But around 100 million revenue is expected from the Mauritian market, but we are looking at the markets near Mauritius i.e. the islands near Mauritius as well as the southern African markets and the Francophone countries in Africa this is going to be the launching base for our African operations. As far as MPM is concerned, it’s not only the individual Mauritius market.

Q: Could you put some numbers to that? You did about Rs 80 crore of revenues in Q3 and your net profits actually dip to Rs 6 crore versus Rs 9 crore that you did the previous quarter. How much are you expecting by way of top line and bottomline from this particular export ventures and how do you see the next quarter panning out?

A: In last quarter we are expecting good growth. I think over the last year we are expecting the topline growth of approximately 50-60%.

As far as the overseas operations are concerned, basically we are setting up the plant in Kenya as well as in Kazakhstan and we have Mauritian operation which is currently ongoing. We expect a sizeable turnover during FY11. This with total operations putting together we are targeting somewhere around 80-100.