Escorts Ltd
The company, which follows October-September fiscal, has extended its financial year by six months.i.e. to March 31, 2014, to align with April-March fiscal calendar. Accordingly, financial year 2012-13 will close on March 31, 2014. The company, reported an increase in net profit of 62% (YoY) at Rs.46 crore in the fifth quarter of its extended financial year. And for the 15-month period ended 31st Dec’13, the company posted a 118% rise in net profit at Rs.213 crore. Improvement in the product mix, price hikes, and cutting down on the other costs helped improvement in margins.
The company recorded an increase of 10% in tractor volumes from 85,277 in the 15 months of the current year v/s 77,779 (YoY). The increase in tractor volumes contributed to an increase of 8% in the revenue at Rs. 5,308 crore. In fact it was tractors which really boosted the company’s earnings. Tractor volumes went sequentially up by 28% (YoY) to 19,047 and volumes rose 11%. Its EBIT came in at Rs.92 crore as against the total EBIT of Rs.81 crore for Q5FY14. The losses in auto ancilliary products, railway equipments and construction equipments, all dragged down the gains made by the agri business. And of the total revenue of Rs.1166 crore, tractors contributed 83% . Thus tractors is its bread winner. In the tractors sector, the company hopes to continue on the growth path and improve on the basis of new products launched in the last two quarters. It expects to grow over 10%. During the quarter it also launched its new range of Europe line and Heritage Series tractors at Hanover, Germany.