LA OPALA RG -BUY

La Opala RG is an undisputed leader of Tableware items in India .The brand 'La opala' commanding a huge brand loyalty in Indian crockery market and the company also exporting its products to almost 30 countries around the world.La opala manufacturing opal and crystal glass wares from its units located at Deoghar and Udhamsingh Nagar in Uttarakhand.Company is steadily increasing its turnover in past many years and its is expected to cross Rs.100 Cr sales by FY 2012.Company is very keen to introduce attractive designs and new varieties time to time which is helping the company to keep its market share in the premium segment of tableware market. This trend is expected to continue in future.Company posted a turnover of Rs.27 Cr and a net profit of Rs.3 Cr in December qtr compared with a sale of Rs.21 Cr and a net profit of Rs.51 lac for the same period last year. Company having a good chance to grow with the increasing consumption theme of Indian middle class in coming years.Investors with long term view can include La Opala RG stock which is currently trading around Rs.66/- in their portfolio.Any dip to around Rs.50/- due to overall market sentiment may take as an opportunity to accumulate more .

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Orchid Pharma CMD wins 'Padma Shri' award

 

 

 

 

 Read with old Report HERE

 

His life and career demonstrate how talented professionals can harness their entrepreneurial energy and utilize the huge opportunity offered by India to establish world-class businesses generating employment and earning valuable foreign exchange for the country. 

 

Chennai-based global Pharma major Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (Orchid) announced that its Founder – Chairman and Managing Director  K Raghavendra Rao has been awarded the prestigious ‘Padma Shri’ Award by the Government of India for his contribution to the Pharmaceutical Industry.

K Raghavendra Rao - a brief profile 

K Raghavendra Rao, Founder - Chairman & Managing Director of Chennai-based global pharmaceutical major, Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd., (Orchid) is a role model of first generation entrepreneurship. His life and career demonstrate how talented professionals can harness their entrepreneurial energy and utilize the huge opportunity offered by India to establish world-class businesses generating employment and earning valuable foreign exchange for the country.  

Born in Chennai, in the year 1958,  Raghavendra Rao had been a brilliant student all through his career. He graduated with a Degree in Commerce from Andhra University with a gold medal for being the topper. He pursued post-graduate studies in Management in the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He also acquired Costing (ICWAI) and Company Secretary (ACS) qualifications while in employment making him a highly qualified professional with multiple competencies. 

Rao established Orchid in 1992 as a 100% export oriented unit (EOU) and grew the Company rapidly into a global pharmaceutical enterprise specializing in life saving medicines. With world-class research and manufacturing facilities covering Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and finished dosage forms as well as infrastructure for New Drug Discovery, Orchid today ranks amongst the top pharmaceutical companies in India. 

By developing Orchid as the largest pharmaceutical corporation in the State of Tamil Nadu,  Rao firmly placed Tamil Nadu in the national and international pharmaceutical canvas.  

Raghavendra Rao is a recipient of several awards and recognitions for his personal and professional accomplishments and Orchid, for its business performance.  Rao received prestigious national awards for his entrepreneurship, two of the leading 

awards being the India Young Business Achiever Award in 1997 and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Manufacturing in 1999. Orchid won several awards for its export performance, environmental friendly operations, energy efficiency and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Orchid Trust established with the initiative of  Rao, contributed to significant social development through schools and healthcare facilities. 

Orchid’s CSR initiatives were recognised by the Loyola Institute with the Mother Teresa Award for the Best Corporate Citizen in 2001.  Rao was also conferred the Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) by the SASTRA University in 2007 for his entrepreneurial achievements and contribution to the growth of the Indian pharmaceutical industry. 

Courtesy :IIFL

 

An old story

 

Courtesy - domain-b

Consider the following scenario: Bill Gates, fresh out of Harvard, incidentally without graduating, has already decided on creating Microsoft. However, hard-pressed for funding, he decides to raise funds from the open market and lists Microsoft right at its inception. To survive in the nascent computer industry, he decides to liquidate most of his personal stake in the company to raise money, and manages to increase its revenues twenty-five times within a decade. However, IBM, the reigning emperor of the computer world, is not happy with the emergence of a pretender to the throne. Nor is it enthralled by the fact that though it enjoys a monopoly on computer hardware, it does not yet have a killer software product. And so, it plans a sneaky counter-attack.
It creates an entity, lets say Takeover Inc, specifically for taking over Microsoft, which waits and watches for the right opportunity. As soon as it finds that there is a general economic downturn and Bill Gates has a lot of debt, it strikes! Share prices are low due to the fall in stock markets worldwide, and Takeover buys a lot of Microsoft shares cheap. Eventually, it convinces institutional investors in Microsoft that the kind of money IBM can offer for their shares is much more they can hope to get in the next few years by staying on with Gates.
They agree and sell out. IBM becomes the new owner of Microsoft and shunts out Bill Gates. End of Microsoft. End of Bill Gates. End of Windows.
Many Mac users will say that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but all criticisms of frequent hang-ups and blue screens of death notwithstanding, Windows still runs more than 90 per cent of the world's computers. And without Bill Gates and his Windows, computers wouldn't be as ubiquitous as they are today. In fact IBM chairman Thomas Watson had once predicted "I think there's a world market for about five computers."
A possible alternate history, though quite a bit dramatised. However, something similar is playing out right now in India, and in quite a different sector of pharmaceuticals. Just replace the names - Kailasam Raghavendra Rao for Bill Gates, Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals for Microsoft, Ranbaxy for IBM, cephalosporin for Windows and Solrex for Takeover Inc, and you have a perfect match.
Like Bill Gates,  K Raghavendra Rao is a a first-generation entrepreneur whose Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals grew in the early years on the strength of its product  cephalosporin, not unlike the ascent of Microsoft as Windows became the de facto personal computer operating system. Similarly, Ranbaxy is the biggest kid on the block, just like IBM had been in Microsoft's youth. And although IBM never made a serious play for Microsoft, Ranbaxy seems from its recent open market acquisitions of Orchid's stocks, very interested in its rival.
How did this all come to pass?
The story began in 1993 with the setting up of  Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, by  IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus K Raghavendra Rao who chucked up a lucrative corporate career to strike out on his own. Though a first generation entrepreneur, he persevered and took the company to a constant-growth curve; from a Rs30-crore company in 1993, Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals recorded a turnover in excess of Rs1,000 crore in 2008.
Rao expanded his company's product portfolio. From a single product, the antibiotic  cephalosporin, its current range includes a variety of medicines in oral and injectable forms. From bulk actives Orchid invested in forward integration into finished dosages, and then moved from lesser regulated markets like China to the developed, and highly regulated, US and Japanese markets.
In the bargain the promoter picked up laurels like the Ernst and Young Business Achiever award and was felicitated by former President Dr.Shankar Dayal Sharma and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for his contributions to the pharmaceuticals industry and a rare presidential visit from President APJ Abdul Kalam during his tenure as president in 2005 (See: Orchid Chemicals hosts presidential visit at its formulations complex)
Rao came from a middle-class background and getting into business was quite an alien experience. All this time, his personal ownership in the company never reached a controlling stake, unlike other Indian promoters. The last time he decided to increase his stake in the company was in March-June 2007, when Rao chose to hike his stake in the company from 17 per cent to 24 per cent after pledging his personal shares with Indiabulls and Religare, a Ranbaxy group brokerage house, to maintain the faith of investors in the company.
Sunk by the Bear Stearns crisis
The story of Orchid is, in many ways, a story of the ongoing sub-prime crisis. Even as Bear Stearns, one of the oldest names of Wall Street, went into bankruptcy recently, it sold shares it held worldwide in a futile rearguard action. Unfortunately for Orchid, one million of its own shares were among those sold by the beleaguered bank in March, resulting in a decline in Orchid's share price from a 52-week high of Rs328 to Rs200 by mid-March.
The fall of the dominoes had started. Margin calls were triggered by the firms which had provided margin funding - Indiabulls and Religare - and Rao was forced to offload seven per cent of his holding to meet their demands. On 17 March, the Orchid share tanked by 38 per cent to around Rs110, and hit its 52-week low of Rs106.50 on 24 March, leaving it a vulnerable takeover target.
This is where Solrex, apparently an investment firm said to be controlled by Malvinder and Shivinder Singh of Ranbaxy, made  an appearance. As late as the end of the last fiscal on 31 March, it did not have any significant holding in Orchid, later revealed to be 4.6 per cent. However, since this was below the 5 per cent mark, Solrex was not required to make the information of its shareholding public.
However, it found in the low share price a perfect buying opportunity, and picked up an additional 3.4 per cent stake from the open market on 3 April. Since the cumulative 8 per cent mandated a disclosure, the information was made public by Solrex. Solrex continued mopping up Orchid shares, and after deals made on 8th April and 12th April, is now the owner of an estimated 14.7 per cent of  Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals. This figure is quite close to the 15 per cent stake that would necessitate an open offer to other shareholders as per Indian law, if the company decides to launch an acquisition.
Of course, the share price hasn't languished all these weeks. It has risen spectacularly since the news of Ranbaxy's interest came in and is now trading in the Rs245 range. In fact, Solrex's latest deals were struck at this price at the stock exchanges on Friday. However, analysts opine that even after this increase in recent times, the stock trades at an attractive PE ratio of 18.44.
Considering the enormous advantages that Ranbaxy can accrue from such an acquisition, odds are on that Ranbaxy mounts a hostile takeover bid for Orchid through Solrex, notwithstanding its management's assertations to the contrary.
What does Ranbaxy stand to gain from such an acquisition? A lot, apparently.
For one, it gets expertise in a field in which it didn't have any – high-end antibiotics. Additionally, it gets a lot of capacity addition in the cephalosporin space, where Orchid is India's biggest and amongst the world's top five manufacturers. Orchid is already notching up impressive sales abroad, and even with this ongoing share drama, the company has found time to expand its footprint in to Japan last week (See: Orchid Chemicals announces Japanese subsidiary). Orchid's product range can also function as an appropriate feeder for Ranbaxy's healthcare subsidiary Fortis. 
Another very important benefit that Ranbaxy will obtain by acquiring Orchid is access to assets and technologies that have been approved by regulatory authorities across the world, including the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration), the UK MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency). This is especially significant in the light that as much as 75 per cent of Ranbaxy's revenue comes from exports, and recently it has had several face-offs with the FDA.
With several pre-approved products, the acquisition of Orchid can enable Ranbaxy consolidate its position in the overseas market.
How can Rao prevent his company from being swallowed by the giant?
One option is to increase his own stake in his company, for which he will require funds. Also, if the other institutional investors, who collectively hold a 38 per cent stake, decide to stand by him and refuse to sell out to Solrex, he stands a good chance of riding out this storm.
For the first alternative, Rao can convert 5 million warrants in his ownership to an additional 7.6 per cent equity stake. This option was unattractive till three days ago, but a 34 per cent rise in the company's share price since Monday has made the conversion price of Rs202.58 per share look cheap. However, even for this, Rao needs to rustle up some Rs.90 crore.
As for the second option, he has already received support from the largest shareholder Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), which hold a 7.8-per cent stake, and has expressly opposed a hostile takeover by any party as a matter of policy. However, the other big investors, notably DSP Merrill Lynch (5.3 per cent), Harpline (4.5 per cent), Macquarie Bank (4.1 per cent), Credit Suisse (3.3 per cent) and Fidelity (2.7 per cent) are yet to decide on their stakes in Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals.
Now, a third option has come to the fore – join hands with another player in the pharmaceuticals industry. Ranbaxy has already diversified from its forte in manufacturing to service through its subsidiary Fortis, which took a stake in Chennai-based Malar hospitals last year, right in Apollo Hospitals' backyard. Apollo's founder and chairman Dr Prathap C Reddy is not one to take a challenge lying down, and sources indicate that he may be in talks with Rao to counter Ranbaxy's unbidden interest in ORchid. However, this hasn't been officially confirmed.
Matters right now are at the moment of climax – will the David defeat the Goliath, or will history be rewritten in the Indian pharmaceuticals industry? Answers may well emerge this week itself.

 

 

 

 

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ASM TECHNOLOGIES LTD -BOOK PROFIT

I have recommended a BUY on ASM TECHNOLOGIES LTD   @ Rs.71 /- abot three days back. ASM gained 15 % in three days and currently in upper circuit @ Rs.82.3.One may book profit and re enter in dips.

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GOVIND RUBBER - BOOK LOSS

I have recommended buy on Govind Rubber @ Rs.17 in July 2010.After touching a high of Rs.26 (an appreciation of  50%) ,currently it is trading around Rs.15/- ( about 12% below the  recommended price). Even if  the company belongs to a good business group and planning to diversify into Bicycle and Agricultural farm sprayers , considering the sharp rise of its prime raw material (Natural Rubber) ,company may face margin pressure in near future. Considering this fact one  may consider an EXIT from this counter and re-think when some change in situation..

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ASM TECHNOLOGIES LTD - BUY

ASM TECHNOLOGIES is a Bangalore based IT company engaged in enterprise applications and enterprise product development for manufacturing, retail, oil and gas verticals.This company was earlier known as Advanced Synergic Microsystems Ltd .Company is generating about 45% of its total turnover from US and 38 % from India.Its associate/Subsidiary companies includes Advanced Synergic Pte Singapore, Pinnacle Talent USA and ESR Associates USA.Company is now expanding its operation by introducing new tools for industries like Sugar ,e-learning etc.Business Intelligence, data warehousing,Product lifecycle management  ..etc  are another areas of concentration.ASM is also active in outsourced product development for Telecom,Networking ,wireless and Mobile Applications. Company were in back even in the tough times of IT industry and dividend paying for the past three years.Now ,with the expected  revival in IT sector ,company is expected to perform even well in future.For the latest qtr ASM posted a turnover of Rs.17 Cr v/s Rs.10 Cr and a net profit of Rs.1.77 Cr v/s Rs 96 lac Nine month EPS is close to Rs.10/- and it is expected to complete the full year with an EPS above Rs.13/-.At CMP of of Rs.71/- there is reasonable scope for further appreciation.

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How to change your operator through mobile number portability

The procedure.. 

1. Send an SMS to 1900 in the following format:

         

PORT

e.g. PORT 9123456789      

 

(Note: 'PORT' is not case sensitive and keep space between port and your number).

 

2. You will receive a reply which will contain a unique 'porting code'.

 

3. Send this unique code to the mobile operator that you have selected, through an SMS. The number to which you have to send your text message can be obtained from an operator's website or, of course, from the ad blitz that will start soon.

 

Remember, again, this unique code is valid only for a few days (say, 15 to 30 days). You will have to send this SMS to your new operator at the earliest. Else, you will have to repeat the procedure described in point (1) above all over again.

 

4. Your existing operator will communicate with the new operator after checking if you have any outstanding amount. If your account has a clear balance, the existing operator will go ahead with the approval for the number porting.

 

5. The subscriber would also have to fill and submit the prescribed form for MNP to the new operator. The subscriber would have to submit documents (like photo ID and address proof) along with the MNP form to the new operator. Post-paid subscribers will have to submit a copy of their latest bill as well.

 

6. You will receive an SMS, which will provide the time and date for porting. According to TRAI, it is mandatory for both the existing and the fresh operators to complete the process for number portability within four days after the first SMS.

 

7. You will receive another SMS from the new operator, confirming the switch. Your mobile phone may remain 'dead' or without network coverage for about two hours while the porting takes place. But don't worry—you will be able to go 'live' again with the new operator—and your old number.

 

8. Remember, you can change your operator only once in every 90 days. 

 

 

Courtesy :Moneylife

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RESULT UPDATES

1) ORCHID CHEMICALS

I have recommended a BUY on Orchid Chemicals at Rs.161/- ( old reports are  HERE and HERE) ,which is currently trading at Rs.301/- .Company posted excellent result for the qtr ended Dec.2010.Sales is Rs.478 Cr v/s Rs.360 Cr and NP is Rs.57 Cr v/s a loss of Rs.19 Cr . It is expected to perform better in coming years too. One can HOLD at current level and a 10 % correction from current level may take as an opportunity to BUY it for long term

2) GEI INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS LTD

I have recommended a BUY on GEI INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS at Rs120/-( old report HERE ) which is currently quoting at Rs190/-. Company posted good result for the qtr ended December 2010  with sales moved up from Rs.62 Cr to Rs.110 Cr and net profit from Rs.4 Cr to Rs.8.6 Cr .One can HOLD at current level. Keep a close watch on new order additions and movement of the price of raw materials.

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