Piramal Ent

The shareholders of Piramal Enterprises always seem to have a reason to cheer. Earlier in Q4, despite the company posting a loss, it rewarded its shareholders with a jaw dropping dividend of Rs.52.50/share of Rs.2 face value. This time around in current Q1, the company turned around with a consolidated net profit at Rs.2896 crore. Even YoY, this is a turnaround from a loss of Rs.147 crore. Its net sales rose 22% (YoY) at Rs.1167 crore and a flat 5% sequentially. What really helped this turnaround was the other income of Rs.100 crore and a whopping exceptional gain of Rs.3031 crore. Other income was basically forex gain and exceptional gain was the profit it made by selling its 11% stake in Vodafone India for Rs.8,900 crore. Thus it was more of these gains which helped rather than operational efficiency.

In other developments, which could lead to more bumper profits in the future, the company during Q1 acquired a 20% stake in Shriram Capital, the holding company for the financial services and insurance entities of the Shriram Group, for Rs 2,014 crore. It also bought a 9.99% stake in Shriram City Union Finance, for Rs.790 crore.