Blue Star net up 55%

Our Corporate Bureau

Mumbai, May 17: BLUE Star Ltd has registered a 55 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 23.54 crore for the year ended March 2001 over its previous year. Turnover rose by 15 per cent to Rs 509.81 crore over last year.

The growth achieved by the company is significant, despite the exclusion of income from its software business this year on being spun into a separate company — Blue Star Infotech Ltd, a Blue Star release said..
Commenting on the results, Blue Star chairman AM Advani said: “The company has improved the return on capital employed to 19.6 per cent, while the return on networth has climbed to 20.7 per cent.” The directors have declared a record dividend of Rs 5.50 (55 per cent) per equity share, the release said.

During the year under review, the company expanded its distribution reach through extensive dealerisation initiatives and focused on commercial establishments such as showrooms, jewellers and restaurants. Order inflow for the year registered a growth of 20 per cent.

The company strengthened its leadership position in its core airconditioning and refrigeration business by gaining market share in most of the segments in which it operates. The software, healthcare and hospitality industries contributed to the growth apart from the retail showroom segment, the release said.

Blue Star’s earnings per share improved to Rs 11.58 for the year March 2001 as compared to Rs 8.58 last year.

Meanwhile, Yokogawa Blue Star Ltd, the joint venture partner of Blue Star Ltd, has bagged three orders of a combined value of Rs 14 crore for revamping of control and instrumentation system.

The contract has been awarded by Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd (CPCL) for a complete revamp of Toshiba’s control system in refinery — one at Manali and Tamil Nadu Petro Troducts Ltd (TPL) for revamp of existing control systems in their linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) division at Chennai.

The third order has come from Hindustan Newsprints Ltd (HNL) in Kerala for carrying out a complete revamp of the existing (pneumatic & hybrid) control systems of the digester plants with modern distributed control system, the release said.