Bangalore, April 17, 2006 (Business Standard)

Bharat Electronics has posted a 30% increase in net profit (provisional) for FY06 to Rs 581 crore as against Rs 446 crore during last year.

The topline moved up by 11% to Rs 3,561 crore for FY06 as against Rs 3,212 crore during FY05. The company exported $13.58 million worth of goods in FY06, an increase of 9% over FY05.

Announcing the provisional results, Y Gopala Rao, CMD of Bharat Electronics, today said: "We are seeing good demand in the market for our civilian products and are going aggresively after that market. The government of India policy on offsets (say, if Boeing gets a $100 million order the government ensures it places a $30 million purchase order in India) is an area we are looking at to boost our topline in the near future."

A capex of around Rs 200 crore - to be totally met from internal resources - is planned for FY07. The company has cash and equivalents of Rs 600 crore. In addition to this capex, BEL has planned a spend of Rs 140 crore on research & development.

The order book of the company as on April 1, 2006 was Rs 6,600 crore as compared with Rs 6,100 crore on April 1, 2005. During FY06, the company booked orders worth Rs 4,000 crore as against Rs 2,000 crore during FY05.

The company currently employs close to 12,000 people and the turnover per employee is Rs 29 lakh, an increase of 11% over last year's figure of Rs 26 lakh. The value added per employee is Rs 12.37 lakh (FY06) as against Rs 11.50 lakh.

Dependence on the defence sector was 86% and the company said it had set a target of scaling this down to around 70% by increasing its exposure in the civilian sector over the next five years.

Supplies to the defence segment amounted to Rs 3,000 crore in FY06 as against Rs 2,800 crore during the previous year. For the civilian segment, the value of supplies was at about Rs 500 crore this year as against Rs 400 crore, an increase of 25%.

This figure is expected to double to Rs 1,000 crore during FY07 as BEL targets a topline of Rs 4,200 crore on its way to crossing the $1 billion mark by FY08.

"To improve civilian marketshare, new business areas are being addressed. We are in the process of negotiating with private broadcasters for providing end-to-end solutions for supply, installation, commissioning and operation of FM transmitters", Rao said.