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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (8653)	10/20/1999 2:27:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Respond to of 12475

FOCUS-India Reliance's star rises with H1 ril.com Wednesday October 20, 2:00 pm Eastern Time (Updates with closing share price, adds managing director Ambani comments paras 9-12) By Anantharaman Muralikumar BOMBAY, Oct 20 (Reuters) - India's private sector petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries Ltd announced on Wednesday a 22 percent jump in its profits for the first half of 1999/2000 (April-March), sharply exceeding analysts' forecasts. The Reliance share raced up over seven percent to close at 255.00 rupees, up 17.2 rupees, while the Bombay Stock Exchange top 30 index was up just 0.25 percent at 4,943.14 points. In the first six months of 1999/2000, Reliance racked up a 11.22 billion rupee ($258 million) net profit, while sales rose to 86.73 billion rupees from 73.74 billion a year earlier. In the latest quarter to September 30, net profits rose 27.5 percent to 6.12 billion rupees from 4.8 billion rupees in the year-earlier period. Analysts had forecast second quarter profits would rise by between 12 to 14 percent. ``The net profit figures are way above market projections. They have exceeded even the best expectations (for the second quarter) by at least 16 percent,' Ketan Desai, head of research at Nucleus Securities in Bombay told Reuters. UPWARD REVISIONS TO FORECASTS EXPECTED An analyst at a foreign brokerage said if the trend continued, forecasts for the full year will have to be reworked. A poll of analysts by Reuters at the end of September showed average expectations centred on a net profit for the full year of 20.7 billion rupees -- up 21.55 percent. Jal Irani, analyst at Jardine Fleming India Broking, said his house was sticking to a 280-300 rupee share price target. Managing Director Anill Ambani said Reliance was considering giving an option to holders of its global depositary receipts (GDRs) to convert them into American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) which would open up a new market in the U.S.. GDRs make up eight percent of Reliance's equity capital. Ambani said he expected Reliance to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange within two years. The Ambani family, which founded the company, said it will seek to make further creeping acquisitions, within the regulatory norms, to raise it stake in Reliance from 28 percent. ``If there is an opportunity, we could effectively buy roughly three percent more from the secondary market, which means about 30 million shares in this 12-month period,' Ambani said. Reliance said the 18 percent growth in six-month sales was largely due to an increase in volumes, but higher sale prices also played a part. ``This substantiates the positive outlook on the petrochemicals sector and the upward movement in the prices of petrochemicals, which has clearly helped the firm,' said P. Krishnan, country manager for Carlson Investments, in Madras. JAMNAGAR START-UP MAKES IMPACT The start-up of a petrochemicals complex and refinery at Jamnagar, in the western Indian state of Gujarat has begun to boost output, which in the six months ended September 30 rose to 3.91 million tonnes from 3.45 million in the previous period. The completion of the Jamnagar complex during the current financial year will lead to a substantial increase in total production capacity to over nine million tonnes per annum. Polyester production rose nine percent to 318,000 tonnes. Volumes increased 17 percent to 745,000 tonnes in fibre intermediates and 13 percent to 583,000 tonnes in polymers. Reliance sells 95 percent of its products in India, but export sales for the six months rose to 4.21 billion rupees from 2.86 billion in the year-earlier period. Carlson's Krishnan noted Reliance, as a fully integrated producer, was partly shielded from higher feedstock costs due to a near doubling in world oil price in the past year. Reliance has a joint venture with Enron Oil & Gas and state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp for oil and gas production from the Panna-Mukta-Tapti fields on India's west coast. Oil output increased from 133,000 tonnes to 167,000 tonnes, a growth of 25 percent. Gas production increased by 33 percent from 5.7 million to 7.6 million cubic metres per day. ($1 equals 43.40 Indian rupees) biz.yahoo.com