Gokul Jaykrishna, Joint MD, Asahi Songwon Colors is very optimistic about the growth outlook for the pigment industry in India over the next five years. He sees good growth for the business in Asian countries like India and China and also some western countries.
For the company per se, the utilizations could go up from 70 percent to 80 percent, says Jaykrishna in an interview to CNBC-TV18. Asahi Songwon Colors Ltd is a leading pigments manufacturer in India and aim to become a leading manufacturer around the world. Pigments are basically colourants, adding colour to everything around us, namely ink, paints, plastics, textiles, rubber etc.
Also read: Asahi Songwon standalone Jun '14 sales at Rs 81.20 crore Below is the transcript of Gokul Jaykrishna's interview with Sumaira Abidi and Reema Tendulkar on CNBC-TV18. Reema: We have seen most of the paint companies come out with a very good set of earnings. Could you tell us for your company? You are the largest player in the Indian pigment industry, what the outlook is and can growth in FY15 be better than the 30 percent growth rate that you saw in FY14?
A: We are into pigments and basically pigments are colourant. The outlook for colourants in the coming next five years looks quite bright because a lot of growth is coming out of the Asian countries like India, China and also other countries. In Western countries, industries like paints are continuing to do very good business though the end-user industries like inks are slightly slow. We have four end users like inks, paints, plastics and textiles, and we specialise in the first three. Ekta: You did about Rs 81 crore in Q1, your EBITDA was Rs 10 crore and your net profit was Rs 4.2 crore. Can you tell us whether you would manage to replicate these numbers or do better in the coming three quarters? What does the trajectory look like?
A: We should be comfortable in maintaining the progress that we have carried forward over the last two quarters and maintaining the last quarter numbers going forward over the three quarters. We should be able to improve it particularly the EBITDA on the back of better utilisation.
We are currently at about 70 percent odd and I am hoping that we take the company to about 80 percent utilisation which in itself should be able to improve the numbers. Asahi Songwon stock price On September 11, 2014, at 10:51 hrs Asahi Songwon Colors was quoting at Rs 181.60, up Rs 5.80, or 3.30 percent. The 52-week high of the share was Rs 191.55 and the 52-week low was Rs 55.35. The company's trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 12.75 per share as per the quarter ended June 2014. The stock's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 14.24. The latest book value of the company is Rs 109.91 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company is 1.65.
