Jindal Steel & Power – Capex of Rs 2000-2500 crore in next 2 years

January 31, 2009 · Filed Under business · Comment 

Financial Highlights

  • For the quarter ended Dec’08 Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) reported a 28% increase in Total Income to Rs 1781.07 crore. However the Operating Profit Margin (OPM) decreased by 370 basis points to 34.4%.
  • The resultant operating profit for the quarter ended Dec’08 stood at Rs 611.99 crore which was 15% higher when compared to the corresponding previous quarter last year. The ensuing PAT for the quarter ended Dec’08 was Rs 325.17 crore which was marginally higher by 2% as compared to corresponding period last year.

Operational Highlights

Production

For the quarter ended Dec’08 the production of Metallics (DRI & Pig Iron) stood at 601873 tonnes, which was 4% lower when compared with corresponding period last year. The production of Steel products stood at 372537 tonnes, which was 4% higher when compared to corresponding period last year. The power generation stood at 736.10 million kWh, which was higher by 11% when compared with corresponding period last year.

Sales

For the quarter ended Dec’08 the sales of Metallics (DRI & Pig Iron) stood at 186328 tonnes, which was 17% lower when compared with corresponding period last year. The sales of Steel products stood at 305295 tonnes, which was 9% lower when compared to corresponding period last year. The power sales stood at 302.17 million kWh, which was 13% higher when compared with corresponding period last year.

Other Highlights

  • Jindal Power (JPL), a subsidiary, has finalised financial results for the quarter ended Dec 31, 2008 which are as under:-

Net Sales – Rs 1160.67 crore

Profit after Tax – Rs 574.62 crore.

  • Jindal Power is presently operating Mega Thermal Power Plant of 1000 MW capacity. The present capacity is further augmented by additional 2400 MW with an investment of around Rs 12000 crore to increase the total capacity to 3400 MW. The debt-equity ratio for the plant is in the ratio of 70:30. It is expected to be operational by 2013-14.
  • The company has planned a capex of Rs 2000-2500 crore each year over the next 2 years.
  • At the Bolivian mines there is extensive mine mapping work going on
  • The company has marginal level of inventory of coking coal at the end of the quarter ended Dec’08
  • The company procures coking coal from BHP.
  • For the FY’10 the company has given guidance of around 1.6 to 1.9 Mt of steel production.
  • The 1 Million tonne steel melting shop is expected to be commissioned during Mar’09 and expected to be stabilized in 6 months period. As a result the production is expected to be higher in the second half of FY’10.

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HDIL – Company has 1 million square feet of TDR as stock in trade

January 31, 2009 · Filed Under conference call · Comment 

Highlights-

  • The company posted extremely disappointing set of numbers during the third quarter ended December 2008 with the revenue falling by 37% to Rs 313.79 crore as compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
  • The company follows a project completion method of accounting rather than the other methodology. So the sales are booked when the project is completed. So the previous quarter pertains to project completed during the previous quarter.
  • 85% of the revenue was contributed by sale of FSI generated from slum rehabilitation projects whereas the rest of the revenue is contributed by TDR (Transfer of development right).
  • The interest cost during the quarter under review increased significantly to Rs 14.15 crore as compared to just Rs 35 lakh during the same period last year.
  • However during the quarter the company had an excess provision of income tax write back and MAT credit entitlement to the tune of Rs 109.22 crore. Thus after adjusting these write-backs the net profit posted a fall of 32% to Rs 184.88 crore during the quarter ended December 2008.
  • Performance during the nine-month period ended December 2008 was disappointing too. The top-line fell marginally by 3% to Rs 1,361.43 crore during the period under review as compared to the same period last year.
  • After adjusting for the excess provision of income tax write back and MAT credit entitlement to the tune of Rs 109.22 crore, the net profit after adjustment was 9% higher at Rs 768.51 crore during the nine-month period ended December 2008 as compared to the same period last year.
  • The company during the quarter ended December 2008 sold FSI of 1 million square feet at Rs 2,600-Rs 2,700 per square feet. Less than 0.5 million square feet of TDR was sold during the same period at Rs 1,250-Rs 1,300 per square feet.
  • The total interest cost of the company is below 14% and the company holds substantial land bank in Mumbai acquired at very cheap prices.
  • The 3 Slum rehabilitation projects (SRA) of the company, i.e. Andheri SRA scheme I, Scheme II and Malad SRA scheme, most of development work has been completed.
  • Currently the company’s main focus is to reschedule the major borrowings and liabilities and to focus on cash flows.
  • Till 20th January 2008 the company has restructured all its debt which was due in the next 6 months. The company has refinanced debt worth Rs 645 crore.
  • All the company’s loans are from nationalized banks and the company has approached the bankers in order to reschedule its loans from 18 months to a period of 5 years.
  • Rs 275 crore worth of Non convertible Debenture would fall due from April 2009 to March 2010. This is nearly 80% of the loan which is due next year. Hence the company is working with its bankers to reschedule this NCD.
  • Rescheduling is being worked out from a bullet repayment to a repayment schedule of longer duration of 1 yrs to 5 yrs.
  • The company is focusing on low and middle income housing projects. On 14th January 2009 the company started its development work on its 1 million square feet project in Kurla with a saleable area of 7.5 lakh square feet. The project will have 850-900 flats of 1-2 BHK flats. The existing rate in these areas is Rs 7000-7200 per square feet; however the company plans to introduce the flat at a price of 5000-5200 per square feet.
  • On this same day (i.e. 14th January 2009), the company launched another project in Versova, Andheri for 2 million square feet of construction, that will be completed in the next 3-4 years. This project will have 325 apartments with commercial and real estate space as well. The company is hoping for a launch price of 8,500 per square feet.
  • Both the Kurla- residential project and Andheri project is expected to bring in revenues over the next two-years to the tune of Rs 1,200 crore.
  • The transfer of development rights (TDR) prices are trading around Rs 1000-1200 per square feet. TDR prices have corrected substantially since September-December 2008.
  • The company has 1 million square feet of TDR as stock in trade.
  • Advance from the customers now is Rs 250 crore, out of which Rs 100 crore are TDR advances.
  • For the airport scheme, the company has four FSI on the entire airport scheme, which has been declared as a vital public project. The company has a total land bank of 192 million square feet currently.
  • The net-worth of the company is Rs 4,405 crore. The debt on the books as on December 2008 is around Rs 4,055 crore and the company has a cash balance of Rs 100 crore.

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Tata Chemicals – 30% demand contraction of Soda ash in China

January 31, 2009 · Filed Under conference call · Comment 

Highlights-

  • The consolidated top-line of the company during the third quarter ended December 2008 increased by 106% to Rs 3,510.01 crore as compared to the same period last year.
  • During the quarter the company incurred notional forex loss of Rs 24.92 crore on account of restatement of borrowings. This is due to unrealized exchange loss or mark-to-market restatement (under AS-11) of foreign currency borrowings including ECB raised to fund the purchase of GCIP.
  • The profit before tax after forex gain/loss increased by 29% to Rs 178.36 crore during the quarter ended December 2008. The company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 91.17 crore, which was flat as compared to the same period last year.
  • The consolidated performance during the nine-month period ended December 2008 registered an increase of 127% to Rs 10,363.08 crore as compared to the same period last year.
  • The company incurred a notional forex loss of Rs 381.95 crore on account of notional exchange loss or mark-to-market restatement (under AS-11) of foreign currency borrowings including ECB raised to fund the purchase of GCIP. Thus the consolidated profit before tax after forex gain/loss increased 32% to Rs 808.88 crore as compared to the same period last year. The net profit of the company increased by 9% to Rs 475.90 crore during the nine-month period ended December 2008.
  • The chemicals division revenue increased by an impressive 71% to Rs 1,447.23 crore whereas the profit from this division improved by 214% to Rs 322.83 crore. The sales volumes (including exports) for soda ash at Mithapur for the quarter ended December 2008 stood at 170,000 tonnes.
  • However huge demand compression in soda ash is being witnessed around the globe, especially in China, where the demand has compressed 30%. The US market has slowed down by around 10%, whereas the demand compression in India was 6% during the previous quarter.
  • GCIP produced 1.76 million tonnes of soda ash in 9MFY09. Sales for the period amounted to 1.77 million tonnes.
  • The global soda ash prices and volume off-take declined during the quarter especially in the African & Asian markets. Some shrinkage in volumes was also witnessed in the US export markets & in Western Europe. In India prices have been reduced by 6 % during the quarter.
  • The current spot soda ash is traded in a range of US$ 190 to US$ 250 per metric tonnes. The bulk tonnage is traded at US$ 235 per metric tonnes.
  • However lower key inputs prices like the declining prices of coal and coke has mitigated the major impact due to price fall of Soda Ash.
  • The company’s market leadership in the domestic edible salt market broke its own record again and reached an all time high of 58% in the national branded segment.
  • The fertilizer division also performed exceedingly well during the quarter with the consolidated revenue increasing by 144% to Rs 2.098.73 crore on the back of healthy demand. The consolidated profit from the division however fell by 67% to Rs 32.45 crore during the quarter ended December 2008.
  • The company sold 1,78,000 metric tonnes of urea during the quarter under review, whereas it sold 2,23,000 metric tonnes of NPK during the quarter under review.
  • Tata Salt’s continues at number one position with market share of about 44%. The I-shakti continues as the third largest salt brand in India in its first year. Its national branded market share is 14%.
  • The Babrala plant was fully de-bottlenecked and now is producing 3,500 tonnes per day levels. The facility was shut for a period of around 40 days to ensure stability of operations.
  • A steeper decline in DAP prices as compared to those of phosphoric acid impacted performance of the phosphatic fertilizer business.
  • The unavailability of rock phosphates and its higher prices impacted the operations at IMACID. The phosphoric acid price realization was US$ 1920 per metric tonnes and the production during the quarter was around 35,000 to 40,000 metric tonnes. The IMACID complex was shut for half of the previous quarter for turnaround.
  • IMACID had Rs 50 crore negative impact due to write down of high cost inventory and now the high cost inventory is through.
  • Total cash on the balance sheet as on December 2008 was Rs 1,199 crore (inclusive of value of fertilizer bonds as on December 31, 2008).
  • The Company’s consolidated net debt as on December 2008 stood at Rs 4,639 crore. This comprises borrowings of USD 475 million taken on the Tata Chemicals balance sheet and a loan of USD 300 million taken on the GCIP balance sheet, both of which have been taken at extremely fine rates. Payment towards the former will commence in June 2012 while towards the latter will begin in February 2009.
  • The average rate of debt for the company is just 6.1% and all the loans are hedged except the US$ 475 million which is taken on Tata Chemicals balance sheet.
  • Net Debt to Equity as on December 31, 2008 stood at 1:1. The company intends to take the gross debt to Equity ratio at 1:1.
  • The company had a capital expenditure plan of Rs 550 crore to be spent during FY 2009, FY 2010 and FY 2011. Now this capex has been revised and the downward revised capex is Rs 400 crore, out of which Rs 200 crore is already spent for Babrala plant de-bottlenecking.

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Shoppers’ Stop – Retail Challenges Ahead

January 31, 2009 · Filed Under conference call · Comment 

Financial Performance

For the quarter ended December 08, Shoppers’ Stop has clocked 14% growth in total income from operations to Rs 353.68 crore with the help of other income from operations of Rs 9.69 crore.OPM improved by 120 bps with the cost cutting measures taken by the company, leading Operating profit growth of 48% to Rs 21.21 crore. However, zooming interest cost at Rs 7.39 crore as against Rs 1.35 crore in the corresponding previous quarter and higher depreciation which increased by 52% to Rs 17.18 crore turned PBT red at Rs 3.36 crore. Further, minority interest of Rs 3.72 crore has lifted Net Profit to Rs 0.46 crore (down by 45%).

Other Highlights

  • The company has opened 25th Store at Jaipur and 26th store at Inorbit Vashi during the quarter.
  • Even 4th Home Stop Store at Inorbit Vashi was also opened during the quarter.
  • Six new Cross word Stores were opened and two stores on east Andheri (SiS) and at Ghaziabad closed during the quarter.
  • First citizen members’ base increased to 1181000 – (historical highest) an increase of 14% over last year, and their contribution to sales increased to 72%.
  • The company has presence in 12 cities with the following stores: Shoppers Stop: 26 stores, Home Stop: 4 stores, Mother Care: 21 stores, Mac & Clinique: 6 stores, Estee Lauder: 1, F & B Outlet: 27, Airport stores: 3, Crossword: 54 stores, Arcelia: 2.
  • Total retail area as on quarter ended December’08 is 1.82 million sq ft.
  • Sales growth of Shoppers stop department stores is 17% and all formats is 21% for the quarter ended September’08.
  • In the quarter, Like to Like (LTL) sales growth for shoppers stop department stores has fallen by 4% and all formats has also observed dip by 3%.
  • Sales per Sq.ft. on chargeable area for Shoppers stop department stores decreased to Rs 2262 from Rs 2528 for the quarter under review.
  • Sales per Sq.ft. for All formats reported has also observed fall to Rs 2258 as against Rs 2290 in the corresponding previous period. The like to like sales also went down to Rs 322.0 crore as against Rs 330.90 crore in the corresponding previous quarter.
  • Customer entries for shoppers stop departmental stores declined by 20% to 5.35 million as against 6.71 million in the corresponding previous quarter. In this case LTL stores have reported de growth of 27%.
  • The company has observed the impact of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, on 26 November 08, as many of the shopping malls observed reluctance of customers visiting the malls. Almost 40% of the company’s revenues come from Mumbai. This is one of the main reasons for the fall in customer entries particularly after 15-20 days of the blast, which impacted the foot falls.
  • During the quarter, transaction size increased by 9% to Rs 2079 and Average Selling Price was up 7% at Rs 936 on a y-o-y basis. However, the LTL volume growth was down by 11% in the quarter ended December 08.
  • Conversion ratio increased to 30% as compared to 25% in the corresponding previous quarter. In this case LTL stores have grown by 20%.
  • Private label mix increased to 19% and sales on this front were up by 3%
  • Non apparels, particularly cosmetics, sunglasses, leather bags, shoe wear etc has improved and thus the non apparel share has improved by 42% from 41.7% in corresponding previous year. The Ladies division and Children division sales have also improved from 17.2% to 17.5% and 8.2% to 9.2% respectively. Surprisingly, the men’s share fell by 31.2% from 33% in the corresponding previous period. Especially Mother care has performing well in the quarter and boosted the sales of children segment.
  • Shrinkage as % of gross retail sales increased from 0.57% to 0.60% in the quarter under review.
  • The company took a hit particularly in the furniture segment and men’s apparel segment in the quarter ended December 08.
  • Apparels to non-apparels ratio was 58.3%:41.7% as against 58.0%:42% in the corresponding previous quarter.
  • Debt on the books as on quarter ended December’08 is around Rs 270 crore. And the average interest cost is around 11.2%. The net worth of the company is around Rs 250 crore.
  • In general the company will maintain inventory of around 8 weeks which in value terms comes to around Rs 500 per sq ft.
  • Company expects to open 4 shoppers stop stores in the first half of the next fiscal.
  • The company is reviewing re-negotiations on rental in the places like Delhi. The company believes there is no much of decrease to coming in the rental in the coming quarters.
  • Out of the Rs 165.31 crore raised by the Company through its Initial Public Offerings (IPO) in April 2005, Rs.163.89 crore were utilized towards the objects of the IPO. The unutilized balance of IPO proceeds have been utilized in temporarily reducing exposure to working capital borrowings.
  • Right issue of Rs 500 crore (Rs 300 crore equity & Rs 200 crore warrants) has been revised to Rs 300 crore (equity) which was expected to hit the market in the Q4 FY’09 is being postponed by the board for the H1FY10
  • During the quarter, Shoppers Stop was awarded “Department Store of the Year” at the Star Retailer Awards held in November 2008.
  • Due to the financial melt down, the company has observed a trend on spending on entertainment, cosmetics and books going higher.
  • The company foresees that the consumption was not impacted much in the past few quarters after the financial melt down, and the worst is yet to come. The company expects H1FY10 would be a challenging period for the company.
  • Gateway Multichannel Retail (India), a joint venture of Shopper’s Stop Ltd and Hypercity Retail (India), with a 51:49 shareholding respectively, shall wind down and discontinue its catalogue retail operations under the Hypercity-Argos brand.

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UTV Software Communications – Revenues of Rs 650-660 crore for FY09

January 31, 2009 · Filed Under conference call · Comment 

UTV Software Communications (UTV) held a conference call to discuss the third quarter results and future prospects of the Company. Mr Ronnie Screwvala, Chairman and CEO addressed the call.

Highlights of the call

  • For the quarter ended December 2008, UTV reported 30% growth in operating revenues at Rs 160.20 crore with OPM down 1290bps at 6.6%. Other Income was up 142% at Rs 2.05 crore, interest income was Rs 19.59 crore and depreciation charge was up 141% at Rs 1.87 crore and tax provision was down 67% at Rs 0.36 crore. The PAT after minority interest of Rs 0.52 crore was up 66% at Rs 29.38 crore.
  • For FY09, the management expects revenues of Rs 650-660 crore.
  • The other operating income of Rs 2.53 crore included in operating income pertains to forex gain from revenues of “The Happening” and from the gaming segment.
  • The interest income (net) of Rs 19.59 crore includes treasury income from funds received from Disney.
  • The sustainable OPM is expected to be 8-10%.
  • The effective tax rate would be 15% for FY09.

Movies Segment

  • For the quarter ended December 31, 2008, Movies segment reported operating revenues of Rs 32.15 crore down 64% with PBIT margin at 66.9% against 26.1% in the corresponding quarter previous year. For 9MFY09, the revenues were up 26% at Rs 188.70 crore with PBIT margins of 28.8% down 60bps.
  • For Q4FY09, the Company has 3 releases: “Dev D”, “Delhi 6″ and a comedy movie. There could be one depending on the environment.
  • 2 blockbuster movies were shifted from Q4FY09 to Q1FY10. For FY10, the company has plans to release about 12-15 movies.
  • The revenue flow for movies is generally theatrical rights, which also have higher advertising expenditure. Post that there are the home video rights and satellite rights.
  • The 3 movies released in Hollywood i.e. “Namesake”, “The Happening” and ‘I Think I Love My Wife” in 2008. The cash flows from these would be received in FY10 of close to Rs 50-75 crore over Q2, Q3 and Q4FY10.
  • For FY09, the management expects growth of 30-35% in revenues.
  • Capital employed for the segment was Rs 824.82 crore. For next year, the company would require about Rs 125-150 crore.
  • FY10 could see release of one animation movie “Ali Baba & 40 Thieves”.
  • “Fashion” had net box office collection of Rs 30-31 crore with cost of production of Rs 18 crore. Of the box office collection 50% would go to distributors also deduct the print & publicity. The company would then do the music sales, DVD rights, satellite rights etc. “Oye Lucky” had collections of Rs 8-9 crore with cost of Rs 6 crore.

Television segment

  • For the quarter ended December 31, 2008, Television segment reported operating revenues of Rs 35.63 crore up 37% with PBIT margin at 5.5% against 20.5% in the corresponding quarter previous year. For 9MFY09, the revenues were up 40% at Rs 101.25 crore with PBIT margins of 4.4% down 1740bps.
  • The growth was on account of higher airtime sales and 2 new shows one each on Zee and Colors.
  • The management expects the segment to grow at 30% for FY09.
  • The management is targeting to improve the margins to 8-10% and would shed shows, which are not profitable.

Broadcasting Segment

  • For the quarter ended December 31, 2008, the segment reported operating revenues of Rs 29.99 crore with loss at PBIT level at Rs 11.31 crore. For 9MFY09, the revenues were at Rs 54.76 crore with loss at PBIT at Rs 20.02 crore.
  • The Company has 4 offerings: Bindass, Bindass Movies, World Movies and UTV Movies. All channels are pay.
  • Carriage fees are down 40%.
  • For January 2009 – March 2010, the Company has done an outlay of Rs 100 crore. The Capital Employed is Rs 313.49 crore.
  • The segment would be loss making in FY10.

Gaming segment

  • For the quarter ended December 31, 2008, the segment reported operating revenues of Rs 34.60 crore up 25% with PBIT margin at 3.5% against loss of Rs 1.49 crore in the corresponding quarter previous year. For 9MFY09, the revenues were up 139% at Rs 70.70 crore with PBIT loss of Rs 4.81 crore against profit of Rs 2.23 crore in the corresponding period previous year.
  • Indiagames has grown 50% on y-o-y basis and 20% on q-o-q basis. It has about 11000 subscribers.
  • The Company had acquired True games in US (west coast). It is developing 3 IPs. Their business model is mainly focused on creation of its own gaming platform in US and Turkey and syndication of its content to online platforms to the rest of the world.
  • True Games has entered into a game development agreement with Possibility Space to develop another high end MMORPG, to be released in FY2010. First game is expected to release during first quarter of FY10.

New Media

  • For the quarter ended December 31, 2008, the segment reported operating revenues of Rs 5.46 with PBIT of Rs 0.41 crore. For 9MFY09, the revenues were at Rs 14.34 crore with PBIT loss of Rs 2.68 crore.
  • For FY09, the revenues are expected to be Rs 20 crore.
  • The segment would not require any funding except Rs 10 crore in FY10. The capital employed is Rs 34.92 crore.
  • In this segment, the Company plans to acquire digital rights of movies, catalogue rights i.e. use the entertainment business for its Internet play.
  • The management expects the segment to break even in FY10.

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Zylog Systems to invest Rs 24.90 crore in its subsidiary

January 31, 2009 · Filed Under business · Comment 

Zylog Systems’ Board at its meeting held on January 30, 2009, had approved the investment in the Equity shares of its 100% subsidiary Zylog Systems (India) aggregating to Rs 24.90 crore towards the WIFI Projects, which is well within the permissible limit of the Companies Act, 1956.

The board also approved the proposal of availing enhancement of working capital facility by Rs 30 crore and additional Term Loan Facility of Rs 20 crore for acquisition of Fairfax Consulting Inc from Union Bank of India.

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ONGC to get back two Nigerian oil blocks

January 30, 2009 · Filed Under business · Comment 

Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) is likely to get back two deep-water oil blocks in Nigeria, which were earlier awarded to a Korean company by the Nigerian government three years back.

ONGC Videsh (OVL) had won these blocks 321 and 323 in August 2005 committing Rs 2376.5 crore as a signing amount. However, these were awarded to Korean National Oil Corp (KNOC) by the Nigerian government on the ground that the Korean firm had a first right of refusal over the blocks.

However, this allocation was cancelled in January 2006 when KNOC paid only Rs 450.8 crore on signing the Production Sharing Contracts for these blocks.

On January 6, 2009 Nigeria’s energy ministry informed OVL that these blocks would be restored to the company if it paid the Rs 2376.5 crore bonus in full within 60 days.

Reports quoted that OVL is currently evaluating the offer and is expected to send a response before March 6.

Currently OVL and partner Lakshmi N Mittal holds three blocks in Nigeria namely the OPL-279, OPL-285 and OPL-246.

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OnMobile Global Expects Ad-RBT to contribute 15-20%

January 30, 2009 · Filed Under conference call · Comment 

Highlights of the call

For the quarter ended December 2008 the company has recorded consolidated revenue of Rs 115.72 crore, 18.7% higher sequentially. On Y-o-Y basis the consolidated revenue surged by 44%. YTD International revenue is 24% of total revenue as compared to 19% for same period last year.

Revenue concentration from top 5 Operators came down from 77% in FY08 to 69% during YTD current year.

The consolidated EBITDA of the company for Q3 FY09 stood at Rs 40.53 crore (35% EBIDTA margin). Sequentially the consolidated EBIDTA grew by 48.1%. The consolidated net profit for the quarter stood at Rs 27.64 crore (22.4% of revenue) with 50% growth Q-o-Q.

The direct costs of the company during the year are higher mainly due to higher content costs including costs related to strategic alliances and higher payouts for media and mobile marketing business.

The company has continued to focus on reducing the discretionary expenditure beginning Q3 FY09, which, coupled with increased revenue, has positively impacted the operating margins.

Material New Developments – Customers

  • During the quarter the company has Launched Cross Operator ‘press * ‘ to Copy between two more Operators in India. It has also won the order to provide VAS services to another GSM operator in India.
  • In overseas market it started deployment of first RBT customer in Europe and signed contract with another Operator in Bangladesh for IVR, OBD and Subscription services.
  • Company also signed contract with an Operator in Bangladesh for providing Phone back-up services. Further a Letter of Intent signed for providing IVR services with another Operator in Indonesia.

Material New Developments – Products

  • During the quarter the company launched Music Search with Bharti Airtel on Telisma’s Speech Recognition Technology.
  • The company has also launched OnMobile Developer Network and initiated retail kiosk rollout with one of India’s largest Operators.

The company has launched its Ad-RBT (advertisement while calling) service with Vodafone in 2 circles on test basis and got a very encouraging response. The adoption rate for the same is quite higher. The recall intensity of Ad-RBT over advertisements is 24 times stronger than other mediums such as FM radio.

The company expects to launch this service on full scale shortly as few technical improvements are still required. The company expects that the revenue from Ad-RBT will start coming from FY 10 and significant revenue will start coming from FY 11 onwards.

The company expects huge potential from Ad-RBT service and estimates about 15-20% of VAS revenue to come from this service only when will launch on Pan India basis.

The company has exclusive agreement for Ad-RBT with Vodafone for some definite time. However, after required time the company will launch this service with all other players as well.

The share of revenue in Ad-RBT would be atleast equal to current sharing or even better.

So far the company has not been affected by the economic slow down. The usage of value added services is increasing in un-conventional circles like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and UP, which has mitigated the impact of domestic slowdown. Further the robust subscriber addition also provides cushion to the company against any slowdown.

The management sees that now a days VAS and mobile services are viewed as personalization than discretionary expenditure.

As the company is still spreading its global footprints and has limited global presence, as the overseas revenue constitutes just 24% of total consolidated revenue during Q3 FY09, the global slowdown has less impacted the company comparatively.

The management considers Talisma, which is a speech recognition technology, as a technology of future and is trying to embed Telisma in all the applications.

As on 31st December 2008 the company has cash equivalents of about Rs 270 crore. The company is open to any merger/acquisition opportunity.

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L&T has not written to Govt on Satyam

January 30, 2009 · Filed Under business · Comment 

We have confirmation from the L&T Corporate Communications that the company has not written to the Government seeking control of Satyam Computers.

Further chief financial officer YM Deosthale has clarified the same while speaking to a popular business television channel.

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Fortis Hospital Seshadripuram Bangalore

January 30, 2009 · Filed Under business · 2 Comments 

Fortis Healthcare Ltd has informed FreePress that the Company, through one of its Wholly owned subsidiaries, has now become a majority stake holder in the Bangalore based Apollo RM Hospital, now rechristened Fortis Hospital, Seshadripuram.

The announcement is in line with Fortis plan to replicate its model to establish network of super-specialty centers of excellence and multi-specialty hospitals to deliver quality healthcare to patients across the country. This will allow Fortis to leverage its knowledge of the healthcare sector and brand recognition to attract both doctors and patients to such facilities. This will be Fortis’ second project in South India after its investment in Malar Hospitals Ltd in Chennai.

The hospital also provides comprehensive range of services in the areas of Renal Sciences, General Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Oncology, Gastroenterology, Internal Medicine, Gynecology and Obstetncs, Orthopedic & Trauma Care, Dentistry, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology, Dermatology, Neurology, ENT, Neurosurgery and Preventive Health Checkup Besides, it also has a Diet Clinic, Dialysis Centre, comprehensive Physiotherapy department, 24 hours Emergency Care, 24 hours ambulance service, Diagnostics, Comprehensive Lab medicine, Radiology and a 24 hours pharmacy.

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