Mumbai, May 3: The stockmarket would be anxiously awaiting annual results to be announced by the four market-movers from the Aditya Birla group. The results follow a nerve-wracking week when a bull-run rise of over 1,000 points was reversed with the Sensex plummeting about 200 points.Expectations of the four companies are that at least two will show an improved performance.
Starting Monday, the companies to announce their results include Indo-Gulf Fertilisers & Chemicals, Grasim Industries, Hindalco Industries and Indian Rayon.
The last two years, after the death of Aditya Birla, has seen the group consolidate its position by sticking to its core areas and shelving diversification plans.
At the same time, some businesses like cement took a beating owing to declining prices and stagnant demand, while more recently textiles saw severe competition from the south-east Asian countries.
The 1998-99 financial year also saw the group chairman Kumarmangalam, son of Aditya Vikram, drop out from the Indianbillionaires list with his personal net worth declining 50 per cent to $600 million, according to the Forbes magazine, which releases a list of the world's richer men every year. The current year is also crucial for the group as most companies have completed a major portion of their expansion plans and are expected to get reflected in their performances during the current fiscal.
Indo-Gulf is expected to begin commercial production at its 100,000-tonne copper smelter later this month, and has targeted a turnover of Rs 800 crore in the first year of operation from the copper business alone. The results to be announced by the company on Monday are expected to be significantly better owing to an improved performance from the urea business.
During the year, Grasim Industries also completed the first-phase expansion of its VSF capacity by 30,000 tonnes. It recently acquired a pulp mill in Canada to integrate its wood-pulp business globally. The group owns two large companies in the south-east and claims to beamong the largest producers of VSF in the world.
What are expected to be a drag on both Grasim and Indian Rayon's performance are their cement divisions. With an installed capacity of over nine million tonnes, the group is the second largest producer of cement in the country after ACC Ltd.
Grasim announced a few weeks ago takeover of a mini-cement unit in South India, indicating that it still would not mind adding strategic capacity in its longer-term interests.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
