Turnover rose 10.8 per cent to Rs 295.86 crore against Rs 266.84 in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The company's board on Wednesday approved the quarterly financial performance.

The restructuring undertaken to run Bilt as a focused paper unit coupled with major thrust on cost cutting has yielded results and the company has reported an allround improvement in efficiency. Improvement is efficiency at all levels of its paper units is expected to improve the company's profitability in future also. The improvement in efficiency is visible in the substantial improvement in the operating profit. The operating profit for the quarter ended September improved by 55.37 per cent to Rs 43.52 crore against Rs 28 crore last year. Operating profit margin (OPM) has improved from 10.5 per cent to over 14 per cent.

The company's board has also granted its final approval to the scheme of arrangement under section 391-394 of the Companies Act which includes interalia the acquisition of the pulp business of AP Rayon, a group company and hiving off the industrial paper business at Ashti to a separate entity, a subsidiary of APR. For the net consideration payable to APR Limited in term of the valuations made by independent valuers, the company shall be issuing fully paid equity shares of Rs 10 each directly to the shareholders of APR Limited in the ratio of three shares for every 10 held.

Ballarpur proposes to issue bonds convertible into equity, aggregating Rs Rs 150-200 crore. The funds so raised would be used to part-finance its ongoing moderniation at various paper units, reduction in high cost debt and to meet its long term working capital needs. Ballarpur proposes to enhance its authorised capital from the current level of Rs 185 crore to Rs 200 crore. Apart from the equity of Rs 97.5 crore, the authorised also includes a preference capital of Rs 102.5 crore.