Titagarh Wagons Ltd has posted a net profit of Rs 24 crore on gross sales of Rs 260 crore for the quarter to June 30, 2008. The company declined to reveal comparable figures for the same quarter of the previous year since it got listed on the stock exchanges just three months ago.

For the full year to March 31, 2008, it reported net profit of Rs 61 crore on sales of Rs 640 crore.

Titagarh said it bucked the slowdown in the logistics sector in the first quarter to bag the single-largest order placed by private container-train operators for 20 rakes, taking the order book to over Rs 1,000 crore.

Briefing reporters after the 11 th annual general meeting, Umesh Chowdhary, vice-chairman and managing director, said: “We have manufactured 1,260 wagons in the first quarter of the fiscal.”

The company manufactured 3,462 wagons in 2007-08.

The company’s rail coach division will soon be able to manufacture EMU coaches, and start bulk production by end of this fiscal. The company has a capacity to produce two rakes or 18 coaches per month, which it plans to scale up to 3 rakes, or 27 coaches. The EMU manufacturing facility is being set up at Uttarpara with an investment of Rs 18 crore.

The company said the Foreign Investment Promotion Board has cleared its 49:51 venture with Freight Car American Inc to manufacture aluminium rail cars.

Titagarh’s special projects division has bagged its first bulk order, worth Rs 32 crore, from the defence ministry to make special integrated field shelters according to a design worked out by the Defence Research & Development Organisation. The prototype is now undergoing trials.

“The shelters can be used to protect human beings from nuclear, chemical and biological hazards,” Chowdhary said.

Its heavy earth-moving and mining division has executed an order valued at Rs 10 crore for three excavators.

SAPL net dips

South Asian Petrochem Ltd (SAPL) has reported a net profit of Rs 11.54 crore for the quarter to June 30, 2008, against Rs 34.30 crore in the year-ago period.

Net sales for the period added up to Rs 296.88 crore, compared with Rs 264.76 crore during the corresponding quarter of last year.

The company said the net profit had declined by Rs 22.76 crore in the latest quarter because of foreign exchange losses or Rs 11.33 crore on restatement of term loans. In the same quarter of the previous year, it had reported a gain of Rs 13.48 crore on foreign exchange.

Operating profit, of Rs 30.38 crore (excluding foreign exchange loss/gain on term loan), was lower in the first quarter compared with the figure of Rs 31.25 crore in the comparable period of 2007.

EIH net at Rs 38cr

EIH Ltd has reported a net profit of Rs 38.01 crore in the quarter to June 30, 2008 , compared with Rs 36.70 crore recorded in the corresponding quarter last year. Net sales for the quarter stood at Rs 236.25 crore compared with Rs 215.52 crore of the year-ago period.