Page 48 - Plastics News May 2018

Business news

RIL logs Rs 100 crore profit Welspun Corp to become debt-

free by March next year
eliance Industries clocked record profits of Rs 9,435
Rcrore in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018, up 17
per cent, on higher margins from its petrochemicals, umbai: Welspun Corp,
retail and digital services businesses. This indicates Mthe flagship company
that RIL makes around Rs 105 of Welspun Group, is hopeful
crore a day. Higher earnings to become debt-free this
from petrochemicals, retail fiscal year itself as against
and digital services businesses its earlier target of 2020,
helped the company offset the a senior company official
lower contribution from the has said. Welspun Corp
refining and oil & gas ventures. manufactures pipes that
RIL's consolidated profit was Rs caters to sectors like oil and gas and water resource
8,046 crore a year earlier. The management, and has managed to reduce its debt by
digital services business, run under the Jio brand, posted Rs 685 crore in FY18. "We are on track on reducing our
a net profit of Rs 510 crore in Q4FY18. This is the second debt. We managed to retire a significant amount of
time in a row the telecom unit has declared a profit. debt last fiscal year and we are hopeful that we will be
debt-free this year itself, ahead of our earlier target
RIL had launched the telecom services in September of FY20," managing director and chief executive Vipul
2016. Jio is six times more profitable than Bharti Airtel, Mathur told PTI here.
whose consolidated profit in Q4FY18 was Rs 83 crore.
The digital services business posted an operating profit of Its net debt as of March 2018 stood at Rs 422 crore
Rs 1,495 crore compared to an operational loss of Rs 32 while it had bank balances and cash reserves to the
crore. Revenues of the business stood at Rs 8,421 crore tune of Rs 965 crore, he said. "Reduction in debt was a
in Q4FY18, helped by a 16 per cent rise in subscribers. result of our prudent financial management. Weve been
diligent around that," Mathur said. He further said the
RIL's consolidated revenues climbed 39 per cent company also has enough orders that gives it a visibility
to Rs 1.29 lakh crore on strong volumes from its of strong revenue growth. "After a period of slowdown,
petrochemicals business due to newly commissioned our businesses in all three geographies, including the
projects and higher product prices, and a 134 per cent US which is our largest market, Saudi Arabia and India,
surge in its retail business. For the full financial year have now picked up.
2017-18, RIL, controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani,
recorded a profit of Rs 36,075 crore, an increase of 21 "We have a healthy order pipeline of 1.65 million tonne
per cent while revenues were up by 31 per cent to Rs to be executed over the next one to two years. We are
4.3 lakh crore. Operating profit expanded nearly 34 per hopeful that such growth will continue and we will bag
cent to Rs 74,184 crore ($11.4 billion). “FY 2017-18 was a significant orders in the coming years," he said.Mathur
landmark year for Reliance where we established several further said he expects good order inflows to continue
records on both operating and financial parameters. in FY19 on account of high energy prices, expansion of
Reliance has become the first Indian company to record national gas grid in India and several water projects
operating profit of over $10 billion with each of our key being planned in India and Saudi Arabia."We are also
businesses — refining, petrochemicals, retail and digital evaluating various options of greenfield and brownfield
services achieving recording earnings performance,” expansion. Our due diligence is going on and we are
Ambani said. looking at various options," he added.

Plastics News May 2018 48