This is part of the Kushagra Bajaj group and its biggest brand is Bajaj Almond Drop with a 61% market share. It’s other brands are – Bajaj Amla, Brahmi Amla, Bajaj Kailash Parbat Cooling Oil, Bajaj Jasmine Hair Oil, Black tooth powder and skincare products under Nomarks brand. The company reaches consumers through 3.8mn retail outlets serviced by 7915 distributors and 11500 wholesalers. It has a total of 9 factories of which 4 are owned by the company at Himachal Pradesh (2), Uttarakhand (1), Guwahati (1) and third party are 5 - Himachal Pradesh (2), Bangladesh (1) and Uttarakhand (2).

The company’s net sales for Q1FY18 was down 4% (YoY) at Rs.196 crore and after higher costs, EBITDA too dropped 14% at Rs.62 crore while margins slipped from 35.37% to 31.51%. The net profit for the quarter came in at Rs.55 crore, up over 5%. The point to note here is that last fiscal, in Q1FY17, the company had an exceptional expense of Rs.12 crore – this dented the profit and this in turn means, profit this current Q1 would have actually shown a fall but for this expense.

This was a very lukewarm performance and with GST impact to yet unfold, Q2 numbers will be watched with a lot of trepidation.