Operating lines of Dahej facility ramped up: Rallis India

A: This quarter is amongst the highest we have ever recorded in terms of topline and bottomline. In terms of the revenues we touched a new high of around Rs 400 crore of net sales which is a growth of 17 percent and in terms of profits we have grown by almost 40 percent to touch about Rs 30 crore.

EBITDA has also smartly risen by almost 20 percent to touch Rs 56 crore and for the 9 months in terms of gross sales we have almost touched Rs 1,500 crore which is a new high. In terms of the profits we are at Rs 132 crore and you will be happy to know that we have crossed in the 9 months more than the full year’s profit of last year. There is also a smart increase in our EBITDA margins by over 50 bps and our EBITDA margin is almost touching 17 percent for the year.

Q: This quarter the street was disappointed with your performance in Metahelix segment with slowdown in growth and because of higher operating losses. Are you facing any pressure in Metahelix?

A: Actually the seeds business is like that. It is largely kharif driven and that too in the first quarter. So if you look at the Metahelix numbers for the 9 months and you look at it for the entire year, the growth is almost 50 percent, and in fact in terms of the bottomline the growth is far, far higher. So we are pretty pleased with the performance of Metahellix during this year.

It has been a very good year. Though I must say that because of the inclement weather conditions -- we had repeated cyclones -- as well as generally the better water availability, there has been a crop shift. Corn, where we have a major play, there has been a shift of acreage so that has been a bit of a dampener during the quarter. Overall for the year we are in sync with our plans, so overall numbers are good.

Q: Overall margins continued to be stable near 14-15 percent. How do you see the numbers going ahead?

A: Overall we should say that we are pretty pleased with the agriculture sector this year. Monsoon has been generally very good. The arithmetical average if you see, both southwest and northeast are very good numbers. Northeast, arithmetically, talks about an 18 percent surplus, but actually it is a bit paradoxical because during this period we had three cyclones battering us on the east and therefore it affected a lot of standing acreage. Just to give you a sense of the numbers, about 13 lakh hectors of crops got destroyed, almost Rs 2,000-3,000 crore worth of crop production got destroyed affecting farmer cash flows a bit. It also affected the yields of some crops like cotton.

So overall while we are talking about a surplus there has been very heavy rain and some kind of effect to cropping pattern during that period, but again good rain actually is good for agriculture.

Q: Can you give us a status update on the ramp up at your Dahej facility and when will that come onstream?

A: The lines that are operating now are ramped up quite well. This quarter they have contributed very well and a lot of our growth has come because of that. We are also putting up little balancing equipment in the other lines and we are working towards some new businesses. So I hope this New Year brings in good tidings on some new businesses, but as of now the facilities are ramped up and working quite well actually.