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PHILIPS India Ltd has decided to sell its lamp
manufacturing facility located at Taratolla in
Kolkata to Kitchen Appliances India Ltd, a Videocon
group company, for a consideration of Rs 1 crore.
Speaking to newspersons after the company's 74th
annual general meeting (AGM) on Friday, Mr K.
Ramachandran, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director
of Philips India, said that only the factory was
being sold on an `as is where is' basis. He added
that the lamp-making equipment at the factory
was not being sold.
According to Mr Ramachandran, the West and the
North were major markets for lamps and the "economics
of operations" in Kolkata made continuance
of production at the Taratolla factory unviable.
The company has also decided to hive off its
hi-tech plastics manufacturing facility located
at Loni-Kalhbor near Pune.
An enabling resolution to this effect was passed
by shareholders at today's AGM.
Mr Ramachandran said that the move was in tune
with Philips's global plans to stay away from
the hi-tech plastics business.
According to him, a decision has been taken to
set up a "global shared service centre"
in Chennai that would be engaged in financial
accounting transactions. Such a centre already
exists in Kolkata, taking care of the financial
accounting transactions of Philips's Indian operations.
Philips India has achieved 16 per cent topline
growth and 40 per cent bottomline growth in the
first three months of 2004 compared with the corresponding
period of 2003, Mr Ramachandran said. He hoped
that the growth would be sustainable during the
remaining three quarters of the year.
Earlier, in his address to shareholders, the
Chairman of Philips India, Mr S.M. Datta, said
that the company was concentrating on lighting,
consumer electronics and domestic appliances.
The focus was on ensuring high returns on capital
employed, he said, and allayed shareholders' apprehensions
by emphatically stating that the company had no
plans to shift its registered office out of Kolkata.
During the year ended December 31, 2003 Philips
India recorded gross income of Rs 1,656.1 crore,
up from Rs 1,618.7 crore in the previous year.
Profit before tax stood at Rs 105 crore (Rs 122.7
crore), while profit after tax was Rs 67 crore
(Rs 104.3 crore). A 15 per cent dividend was declared
for the year gone by.
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