Net profit during the period increased 28.28 per cent to Rs 5.85 crore, up from Rs 4.56 crore in the corresponding period of 1996-97.The board of directors has recommended a dividend of Rs 1.50 per share for the year.

Other income has increased to Rs 3.14 crore from Rs 2.45 crore in the same period last year. Interest charges declined to Rs 1.92 crore from Rs 2.54 crore in the last fiscal.

Capacity utilisation of the three plants - hydrofluoric acid, aluminium fluoride and cryolite - was higher during the fiscal. A company release claims it has implemented debottlenecking and expansion of the hydrofluoric plant and full benefit will be available during 1998-99.

Leadership in aluminium fluoride has been maintained and Tanfac now plans exports to the US and Australia. Owing tothe south-Asian crisis, however, the overseas market for hydrofluoric acid is affected.

The company's diversification programme into the manufacture of organo-fluoro chemicals, used as intermediate chemicals for making anti-biotics, is under implementation and is expected to go on stream by December 1998.

Tanfac shot into the limelight last year, when a proposed preferential allotment to the AV Birla group was turned down by the company's minority shareholders. The financial institutions remained neutral.

The AV Birla group's stake would have increased to 51 per cent if the shareholders had cleared the allotment.