Ranbaxy posts 1.6 Bn profit in second quarter

Tuesday, 29 July 2008, 19:30 IST
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New Delhi: India's largest drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories has posted a consolidated net profit of 1.61 billion ($39 million) in the second quarter ending June 30, almost unchanged from 1.6 billion ($39 million) earned in the comparable period last year. Ranbaxy starts its fiscal year in January. Ranbaxy's company's global sales, however, grew 13 percent to 18.3 billion ($440 million) in the second quarter this year, up from 16.24 billion ($395 million) that the company had posted in the comparable period of last year, it said in a regulatory statement. In dollar terms, the global sales figures reflect a growth of 11 percent. Although net profit figures are steady and have not grown, "the important thing is that our earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortization (Ebitda) has improved so that our margins to sales have gone up to 16.8 percent this quarter up from 16.4 percent last year," Malvinder Mohan Singh, the company's chief executive and managing director told. "Better balance between developed markets and emerging markets and better price realizations helped us to maintain profitability," Singh said. For the entire first half, the company reported total sales of 34.5 billion, up eight percent from 31.9 billion sales that the company had posted in the first half of last year, Singh said. The profit after tax for the first half of the current year at 2.8 billion was up six percent from 2.65 billion that the company had earned last year. While Ebitda grew 16 percent to 3.1 billion in the second quarter this year, up from 2.7 billion last year, for the entire first half this year, the Ebitda at 5.51 billion was up 15 percent from 4.79 billion that the company had posted in the comparable period last year. This reflected an improvement in margins to sales of as much as 100 basis points up from 15 percent in the first half last year to 15.9 percent in the first half this year, Singh said. Global sales growth was largely driven by the company's good performance in the North American market comprising the US and Canada, Singh said. He said the 18 percent growth in sales in the American market in the second quarter reflected that the United States Federal Drug Administration's charge that the company illegally sold of drugs had made little or no impact on its business. While developed markets led by the US and Canada contributed 40 percent and grew 12 percent, emerging markets accounted for 53 percent of global sales and recorded a growth of nine percent in the quarter under review. The Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) business recorded a growth of 31 percent and contributed seven percent to sales, he said. Singh said the company expected that the second half of the current year would prove to be even better for the company than the first half.
Source: IANS