Symphony now large-cap company, plans unit at Kandla SEZ.

Having entered the large-cap league, leading air-cooler manufacturer Symphony Ltd. plans to set up an assembly unit, with a capacity of two lakh units per annum, at the Special Economic Zone at Kandla in Gujarat.

Achal Bakeri, Chairman and Managing Director, told reporters here on Friday that the company plans to start commercial operations at this new unit by December 2015. The new plant will be set up on a lease basis, mainly as an assembling facility, so not much investment is expected.

The unit's location next to Kandla port is expected to provide a logistic advantage, particularly for exports. The company also expects to get cent per cent income tax break for five more years. Also, Symphony plans to launch new models at Kandla.

Meanwhile, Symphony has entered the large-cap category as its market capitalization has increased from Rs. 2.80 crore a decade ago to over Rs. 5,000 crore now. In a decade, the company’s share price has increased over 1,800 fold from 80 paisa on September 13, 2004, to Rs. 1,456 per share when it closed on the BSE on Friday. That is, Rs. 1,000 invested in the shares of Symphony on that day has now grown to Rs. 18.75 lakh recently , he said.

For the year ended June 2014, the company posted net profit of Rs. 105.72 crore on a turnover of Rs. 532.42 crore. In the last 5 years, its CAGR was 34% in sales and 30% in net profit. Symphony has reserves and surplus of Rs. 268.84 crore as on June 2014.

Symphony, which virtually became bankrupt in 2002, exited from all product categories and focused only on air coolers. In 2008, it acquired the Mexico-based Impco Air Coolers, which had patented cooling technology called 'evaporative cooling'. Now the company is market leader in India's air cooler industry with 50% market share in value terms among the organized players.



HBL