Pokarna Engineered Stone, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pokarna, has come out of a corporate debt restructuring (CDR), which it had to take in 2012 due to delays and adverse market conditions.
Lenders give nod Scripting a turnaround, PESL, which manufactures natural quartz surfaces under the brand name Quantra, earlier this month secured lenders’ nod to come out of the CDR package after petitioning it several months ago.
Gautam Chand Jain, Chairman of Pokarna, said, “The CDR exit will lead to greater operational flexibility for the organisation. This will also help swap costly rupee debt with cheaper foreign currency loans.”
The CDR mechanism involves upfront payment of ₹17.51 crore, which includes ₹16 crore by way of non-convertible debentures with a coupon rate of 11 per cent redeemable in three years.
“Major delay was due to problems in land allocation made in Hyderabad. Later, we were allotted land in a special economic zone near Visakhapatnam where we built the factory,” he said.
₹200-crore revenue “Completing the project and running it successfully for two years, and logging revenues of over ₹200 crore, last year we knocked on the doors of the lenders, led by Union Bank of India, to allow us to exit the CDR mechanism. They approved it on June 8,” he told BusinessLine .
Into its 25th year of business, this manufacturer and exporter of granite and quartz surfaces, also makes and sells apparel under the brand name Stanza. While granite accounts for about 47 per cent of its business, the share of quartz is 51 per cent and apparel 2 per cent.
The company has two manufacturing units for granites near Hyderabad and one for Quartz surfaces in Visakhapatnam.
On consolidated basis, Pokarna closed financial year ended March 31, 2016, with net profit of ₹51.20 crore and income of ₹394.32 crore.
On Monday, Pokarna shares closed at ₹875.25, down 0.73 per cent, on the BSE.