Waterbase

Waterbase is an aquaculture company, based in Andhra Paradesh. A part of the Karam Chand Thapar group,       for Q3FY16, the company had a very poor run. From a net profit of Rs.6 crore in Q2 and Rs.4 crore in previous Q3, it ended the current Q3 with a net loss of Rs.12 crore. Lower revenue is what truly did it in – it was down at Rs. 54 crore from Rs.62 crore in Q3FY15 and Rs.99 crore in current Q2. This was on account of the floods and the plant was shut down from 19^th Nov till 27^th Jan’16.

To make matters worse, it had an extraordinary expense of Rs.17 crore and this is the amount it has put down as insurance claim it has suffered damage on account of the floods. There is also Rs.3 crore as the one-time settlement it paid to Canara Bank to settle a long drawn litigation.

The company in Q2 itself had warned that the Q3 and Q4 would be cautious as the prices of its products have been down through H1 and had started improving only towards end of Q2, yet it expects H2 to be challenging. The company is meanwhile expanding its network into Gujarat, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu and it began exports to EU and USA during Q2.

The Thapar group owns 52.43% stake as at 31^st Dec Sept 2015 and there is no FII holding.