| Economic Times - Feb 3, 2002 |
| JVs should be based on transparency |
M. Ramesh
Chennai, Feb. 6 |
| The Chennai-based Sanmar group expects record
profit this year, the group Chairman, Mr N Sankar, has said. |
| Addressing the Chennai chapter of the Alumni of
the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, on 'Managing Joint
Ventures' here. Mr Sankar said that the group's profits, which had
"peaked at over Rs 115 crore" a few years back had "dipped a bit"
in the last couple of years. |
| "The current year is looking better and we expect
to achieve a profit before tax of Rs 130 crore", he said. |
| The group's flagship company, Chemplast Sanmar
Limited made a net profit of Rs 14.60 crore in the first nine months
of the current year, as against just Rs 2.54 crore in the same period
last year. |
| The company Managing Director, Mr P S Jayaraman,
said that this was due to favourable prices of PVC and caustic soda,
but cautioned that these prices were on the downtrend. |
| Mr Sankar said that an important feature of the
current year's performance of the group was the upswing in exports.
Exports would amount to Rs 160 crore, not including the forex earnings
from the group's shipping venture, which are about Rs 110 crore. |
| The dozen-old joint ventures under Sanmar Engineering
Corporation would export about Rs 90 crore, or about 40 percent of
their total turnover, Mr Sankar said. "This has come in very useful
at a time when the Indian market has slumped dramatically with no
new project start-ups," he said. |
| In his speech, Mr Sankar also noted that the Sanmar
group had terminated its joint venture with Bayer of Germany a few
years ago, because "Bayer could not deliver the export markets in
the far East, based on which we had formulated the joint venture".
He, however, stressed that the separation was smooth and that friendly
relations continued. |
