Released On : 29-AUG-2003

Results - Q3 - 2003 (July - Sept) and Nine months 2003 (Jan - Sept)
Declared at the board meeting held today 29/10/03

Highlights

About The Paper Products Limited (PPL):

PPL is India’s leading manufacturer of primary consumer packaging with annual gross sales exceeding Rs.400 crores, and net capital employed of Rs.175 crores.

PPL is the pioneer and the technological and market leader in Flexible packaging and Labelling. The Flexibles range is wide, diversified and sophisticated, encompassing the packaging needs of almost the entire range of FMCG segments including personal products, personal wash, laundry, foods, sauces, beverages, bakery products, spices, chocolates and confectionery, dairy, etc.; and also for seeds, specialized chemicals, electronics and many other specific specialized uses including anti-spurious packaging.

The Labelling products range includes latest leading edge technologies — Shrink sleeves, Heat transfer labels, Pressure sensitive labels, Metallised labels and Wrap around labels.

PPL is also into manufacturing of specialized cartons and cartoning systems, manufacture of poly films, specialized barrier metallising and high-end application extrusion coating. The company’s packaging machines division enables it to offer complete packaging solutions to the customer.

PPL mainly caters to the premium segment of packaging and its customer profile includes HLL, Nestle, GSK, Cadbury, Britannia, Coca-cola, Perfetti, Marico, P&G, Amway, Emami, Dabur, Eveready, Godrej Sara Lee, etc. etc.

PPL’s manufacturing facilities are located at Thane, Silvassa and Hyderabad. Today, PPL is a joint venture with the global packaging major — Huhtamaki Oyj, Finland who hold 59% of the equity capital. Huhtamaki is the world’s sixth largest consumer packaging multinational.

More at our web site : www.pplpack.com

Q3 – 2003 Results:

The Net sales for the third quarter (July-Sept) of 2003 are at Rs.1000 million as compared to Rs.884 million in the third quarter of 2002. This represents a 13% growth in sales. The Profit before tax is Rs.117 mn as compared to Rs.101 mn in the Q3 of the previous year. The Profit after Tax is Rs.83 mn as compared to Rs.63 million in the Q3 of 2002.

Nine Months - 2003

The Net sales for the nine months ended Sept 03 is Rs 2847 mn as compared to Rs 2388 mn in the nine months of 2002. This represents a 19% growth in sales. The Profit before tax for the nine months of the current year is Rs 277 mn as compared to Rs 275 mn in the nine months of the last year. The Profit after tax for the nine months of the current year is Rs 193 mn as compared to Rs 191 mn for the same period of the previous year.

The Top line represents a robust growth of 19% in difficult market conditions. The company’s innovation programme, NASP — “New Applications Structures and Products”, continued to create new business. The robust growth also represents the ever-growing confidence of customers in PPL’s commitment to meet their ever-demanding needs for focused service, good value and innovation for growth.

The PBT for the third quarter showed an improvement over the previous quarters of the current year as well as to the comparative quarter of the previous quarter. The relentless raw material price increase during the first half of the current year somewhat stabilized during the third quarter. As a result of this recovery, the PBT for the nine months of the current year was marginally above that of the previous year.

Going Forward:

The robust top line growth, in the nine months of this year, gives confidence for the rest of the year.

The strong volume growth also enables us to step away from business which is becoming relatively lower end in terms of quality needs, and still have a large market for growth.

The third quarter did see stabilisation of input prices, though still much higher than the prices prevailing in the last quarter of last year. This gives hope of stable margins in the last quarter of the current year.

All things considered, we are hopeful for a stability in margins, and we also look to volumes to further help recover the bottom line. The strategy going forward would be to continue to focus on consolidating the strengthened market position, continually developing the company’s innovation program (NASP), and maintaining volume growth.

Awards:

Huhtamaki, Finland, awarded PPL ‘The Company of the Year’ (for the year 2002) amongst about 120 companies in the Huhtamaki group. This is the second year in succession that PPL is being recognized. In the year 2001, Mr. Suresh Gupta, CEO was awarded the ‘Manager of the Year’ by Huhtamaki.

PPL was also given “Triple A Performance” awards in the years 2001 & 2002 – two years in succession by the Executive Board of Huhtamaki.

PPL won yet again The World Star Award 2003 for ‘Pure Magic – Speciality Premium Cartons’ for Britannia and The Asia Star Award 2003 for ‘ Sunsilk - Smart pack standup pouch with spout’ for Levers.

Contact Person:
Mr. M.K. Srinivasan
Senior Vice President - Finance

Tel :	Board. 2534 3691
	Off: Dir. 2534 5024
	Mobile: 98211 35774