Jagran Prakashan positive on national venture

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Jagran Prakashan has announced its Q4 FY09 numbers. Its net profit went up 41.3% to Rs 21.8 crore as against Rs 15.4 crore, QoQ. The company's net sales increased 6.58% to Rs 197.5 crore from Rs 185.3 crore, QoQ.

Mahindra Mohan Gupta, CMD, Jagran Prakashan said its publication Dainik Jaigran had a readership of 54.58 million; which happens to be the largest read newspaper in the world. He added that he expected the cost of newsprint to be much lesser. Dainik Jagran has now been launched nationally and Gupta has a positive outlook on its future.

Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with Mahindra Mohan Gupta on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: That's a spectacular set of net profit numbers that you have announced at about 50% higher than what it was year ago. Can you take us through the sales numbers and whether the net profit has any extraordinaries?

A: We did very well during the last quarter. If you see our quarterly results for the last quarter they are much better. Our PAT is 40.91% higher last quarter and the annual results also are encouraging looking at the last year position when the slowdown was there but still we could maintain the profits.

Q: Can you reel out the numbers first - we don't have your full year profit, we don't have any of your revenue numbers - if you can just read out profitability?

A: I will give our last quarter results in comparison to last quarter. Our operating revenues have been this year Rs 201.25 crore which were up by 5.91% from Rs 190.01 crore and our PAT has been Rs 21.82 crore for last quarter which is up by 40.91% from Rs 13.48 crore and according the EPS non annualised has gone upto Rs 0.72 from Rs 0.51.

Q: Was there any extraordinary income in the fourth-quarter?

A: There was no extraordinary income but that's only because of the slowdown in the economy. We had to tighten our belt and improve our overall operating income and control our operating expenses.

Q: Can you take us through the full year numbers - sales and profit?

A: Our operating revenues have been Rs 823.37 crore up by 9.84% from Rs 749.63 crore and our operating profit has been Rs 156.71 crore for the whole year which is definitely down by 4.33% even in such a slowdown and extraordinary position of the country. Our PAT has been Rs 91.63 crore after making provisions for foreign exchange differences of Rs 6.18 crore, which we opted to be reduced from the profit.

Q: Can we come to your advertising revenues? How did your advertising revenues do in the fourth-quarter and more importantly how have they done in the current quarter which has already began?

A: The fourth-quarter we are up approximately 7% and overall revenue grew by 10.61% and this current quarter also we are doing quite well and we are confident that we will be achieving much higher revenues.

Q: Could you tell us what kind of price differential you have seen in the cost of newsprint quarter-on-quarter (QoQ)?

A: Newsprint prices have not stabilised; they have gone down and we hope our cost of newsprint will be much lesser as we are trying to enter on a long-term contract at a very reasonable price. So our cost of newsprint will be very much on a lesser size.

Q: Let me go through your advertising revenues; As compared to what you are doing now, how do you see the outlook? Is it strong and is it strong because you are spelling more space or are you getting more price per unit and can you tell us how much the prices have gone up by and perhaps the same for subscription - you had already increased 50 paisa in December I believe - is the subscription going up or the unit price going up?

A: We have increased our circulation sales prices and the outlook for the future in advertising is both ways - it is by space and as well as colour advertising. So we get extra income on that too and then there is also the rate revision; the IRS has given the number one status in the country to Dainik Jagran 12 times in a row across all languages and today we have total readership of 54.58 million, which also happens to be the largest read newspaper in the world.

Q: Can you take us through the outlook for the current year? What are you expecting by way of revenue growth and any new products that you may be launching?

A: We are more in a consolidation mode but we are definitely certain new additions of I-Next and City Plus are going to be there and we have already come out with national addition of Dainik Jagran. With the stable government which is expecting 8-9% GDP growth, we are quite confident about a very positive outlook for our newspaper.