Total expenditure, which mainly consists of raw material consumption could not be reduced in direct proportion to sales. There was a lower percentage fall in the total expenditure by 3.8 per cent as against sales.

Despite operational losses, the bottomline would have registered a growth of 22.63 per cent, if the huge other income component had not gotten offset by a one-time expense and provision of Rs 14.6 crore. Thanks to a huge other income of Rs 92.15 crores, the bottomline slid only by Rs 5.97 crore to Rs 32.34 crore. The turnover for the fourth quarter at Rs 138.33 was around half of what was achieved during the first nine months. This may look impressive vis-a-vis other quarters in the current fiscal. However, the second and fourth quarters are usually very good for the engineering industry. The same can be said of other income figures. The fourth quarter saw other income shooting up to Rs 61.08 crore, which is almost double the cumulative figure for the first nine months of the current fiscal.

Although the performance for the fiscal is bad, the company cannot be blamed entirely. In fact, results reflect the downturn in the EPC industry, which was also seen in L&T results. To its credit, analysts expect it to have performed well the in water treatment plant and ion exchange resins business, although division-wise figures are not available. The only silverlining is the restructuring process being undertaken. The company has exited from a loss making joint venture - Thermax Fuji Electric Ltd (TFEL), established as a joint venture company between Thermax Ltd and Fuji Electric Ltd of Japan, has been dissolved. The joint venture, in operation since 1996, had at the end of its third year of operations, recorded a turnover of Rs 35 crore. The loss incurred due to this amounted to Rs 14 crore. It has also embarked on "Project Green" under which it has given the mandate to restructure its business divisions, subsidiaries and joint ventures to the US-based Boston Consulting Group. This is expected to enableThermax to focus on the environment, water, chemical and energy businesses and get out of unrelated areas. The entire restructuring exercise is being conducted on a war footing and will be completed by July-end.

Bank of Baroda
The statement that the fiscal 2000 was good for nationalised banks seems like an understatement. The encouraging results of these banks comes after two years of a very mediocre financial performance. The fiscal has seen immense activity for the banks throughout the year, be it the insurance business, rate cuts, NPAs or VRS, the banks seemed to be in the thick of it.

Bank of Baroda (BoB), the second largest public sector bank in the country, has posted satisfactory results for the year ended March 2000. The bank's scrip was last quoting at Rs 42.3 and had touched a bottom of Rs 34 by the end of May. Bank of Baroda managing director and chairman Shenoy, like the outgoing SBI chairman, has asserted that the bank will put on hold it's ADR plans until the scrip gets a better valuation at the bourses. However, that seems a remote possibility. It will take ages for BoB and SBI to get the same valuation as some of their private sector peers notwithstanding the bankers' views on the fundamentals of their respective banks.

The BoB has 70 per cent of it's branches in rural and semi rural areas. Its problems are compounded by the lack of a tech savvy bank image, overstaffing and NPAs. Also, the tag of a government bank will continue to cost the bank dear.

Coming to the results, the bottomline has appreciated by 19.3 per cent to Rs 502.77 crore from Rs 421 crore in the previous year. This is the highest net profit reported by any nationalised bank this year. Also, the operating profit of the bank at Rs 1057 crore compared to the previous year's Rs 945 crore is one of the highest in aggregate terms. The rise in the net was helped by the fact that the total as well as the operating costs were reigned in this year.

The topline on the other hand has shown a moderate appreciation of 8.55 per cent to Rs 5861.61 crore against Rs 5399.73 crore despite a higher deposit and advances growth. Deposits have kept pace with advances, witnessing an identical growth of 15 per cent and 15.6 per cent respectively for the year.

This, when viewed against the back drop of the rate cuts earlier this year by the central bank, seems to be reasonable. The other income component of the bank witnessed a rise of 10.78 per cent compared to the previous year. The bank's treasury operations were commendable and accounted for 59 per cent of the incremental domestic domestic income. The bank also, benefitted by it's presence in the money, debt and forex markets.

It must be recalled that the Bareilly Corporation Bank was amalgamated with the BoB with effect from June 3 1999. The assets and liabilities of the latter stand at Rs 329.11 crore and Rs 330.20 crore respectively. Provisions and contingencies for the year stand higher this year at 548.9 crore from the previous year's Rs 523.85 crore. NPAs stand at a high 6.95 per cent of the advances and there has been no significant achievement on this front .The Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) has witnessed a decline to 12.1 per cent from 13.4 per cent. The return on assets and the return on equity witnessed a marginal appreciation.

-- KSESH with contributions from Manish Joshi and Sachchidanand Shukla