Key Highlights Toilet soaps segment • Itc Ltd.chairman gets Environment Protection 2006 award. ITC Ltd is conducting extensive research to measure the dynamics of the Rs • Itc Ltd. Have plans to come up with three hotels in West Bangal. 4800cr toilet soaps sectors. It is planning to widen its product portfolio to take • ITC looks to invest in the horticulture value chain in West Bengal from on established players like HLL, Wipro and Godrej. It is currently looking for as the farmer to the consumer. advertising agency to handle the communication strategy for its yet to be • Itc Ltd. has informed has increased its shareholding in King Maker launched toilet soaps. Marketing, Inc., USA (KMM), from 50% to 50.98%, effective October 25, . 2006. Food Business • ITC Ltd has issued and allotted 5,65,660 Ordinary Shares of Re 1/- ITC division embarks upon new farm project in Mysore each, upon exercise of 56,566 Options by Optionees under the ITC The Indian Leaf Tobacco Development (ILTD) Division of ITC Ltd, as part of Employee Stock Option Scheme (ESOS). its on-going farm extension work in the tobacco growing areas of Mysore in • The greetings cards business of ITC Ltd has launched 92 new SOS Karnataka, has launched project "Dharthri" to improve soil health through the Children's Villages of India greeting card designs for Diwali, Christmas use of vermi-composting. Under this project, the company extends technical, and New Year. material and financial support to the farmers. The project involves upgradation • Itc Ltd. looks at Punjab Agro Products. of the farming community by making "significant interventions in the entire • Marubeni has entered into an alliance with ITC for food business value chain of vermi-composting - from establishment of vermi-compost pits to including exports of Indian beans. the final marketing of the product. Besides improving soil wealth, it is also • ITC has planned to expand its fruits and vegetable retail and wholesale expected to reduce farmers' dependence on inorganic fertilizers. The business Choupal Fresh by setting up 54 new outlets over the next three company has assumed the task of popularizing the concept as an integral part years. of the sustainable agriculture package in Mysore tobacco farming by helping • ITC Ltd has planned to establish a five star hotel in Ahmedabad under the farmers establish around 5,000 vermi-compost units by 2007, and extend the banner of ITC-Welcomgroup chain of hotels. the number to 10,000 units by the year 2010. It plans to establish 5 units every . day in the project period. The units at present are captive ones, set up to meet Industry Scenario farmers' own requirements and not yet been scaled up for commercial production. The FMCG sector represents consumers goods, which are required daily. The . market for such goods is therefore vast and has high growth potential. The ITC entered into foods product segments sector is largely driven by volumes and is very price sensitive; this makes it a ITC is looking at acquisitions and new product segments to emerge as a low margin sector. Availability of raw materials, cheap labour costs and a wide dominants foods player in five years. ITC Ltd intends to leverage its three range of products gives India a competitive advantage. Presently the sector is assets, as Deveshwar puts it, to achieve these activities. The three leverages the fourth largest sector in the country with the total market size in excess of are: strong linkage with farmers helped to achieve the desired goal by Rs 600 billion and accounts for 5% of the total factory employment in the availability of raw materials, 5400 e -choupals with 34000 villages and by country. The sector is divided into many sub segments and is highly expansion of e- choupals to 25000 with 1 lakh villages by 2010. fragmented. Of the total consumption expenditure, almost 40% and 8% was . accounted by groceries and personal care products respectively. The lower middle class accounts for as much as 60% of the sector's sales and rural e-choupal market accounts for 56% of the total domestic FMCG demand. The Indian Investment in e-choupals FMCG sector has a strong MNC presence and is characterized by a ITC will be investing Rs 5,000 crore in the virtual network, e-Chopal, to give it a well-established distribution network and intense competition between the physical shape in the form of Choupal Sagars. In a time horizon of over 7 to organized and unorganized segments. Among the organized players 10 years, the company would create a network of 20,000 e-Choupals and over competition is fierce in the sector with presence of some of the big names like 700 Choupal Sagars, Entailing investment of Rs 5,000 crore, thereby, HLL, P&G, Colgate, Nestle, Cadbury, Godrej, ITC, Dabur, Marico, Britannia extending coverage to 100,000 villages. For every 25-30 e-Choupals, there and many more small and medium player. HLL, an arm of Unilever, is the would be one Choupal Sagar. The Choupal Sagars would be complete with largest player in the Indian sector. It faces tough competition from Procter & hypermarkets, fuel station, and health centre. Around 40 companies would be Gamble Company, USA's Indian arms P&G Health and Hygiene Ltd. (PGHHL) partnering with ITC for marketing their products. and P&G Home Products Ltd (PGHPL). Indian cigarette and tobacco segment . grew with a CAGR of 63.2% during 2001-2005, the highest growth in Increase in number of e-choupals. Asia-Pacific region. The majority of tobacco consumed in India is not ITC, through its International Business Division has decided to set up 100 cigarettes, but is in the form of bidis and chewing tobacco. Major players in e-choupal during the current Kharif season in north Telangana of Andhra. cigarette segment are; Indian Tobacco Company (ITC), Vazir Sultan Tobacco . (VST), Godfrey Philips (GPI), Golden Tobacco Company (GTC), and National Rural Market Initiatives Tobacco Company (NTC). In the sector the success of a company depends ITC plans to set up 30 more rural malls on its product awareness and distribution strength. The growth potential for ITC plans to open 30 more malls (Choupal Sagar) in 2005-06, in synergy with the sector looks promising in the future as the per capita income in the country its fast growing e-choupal network. The construction of nine malls is nearing is increasing and more and more people are moving towards the higher completion (three each in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh). income level class. Looking forward rural market will present huge growth They may be opened within the next few months. potential for the sector. Company's ability to penetrate into rural market and . product innovation will decide their fate. Card Business . Expressions Regalia Operational Performance ITC has launched a new corporate gift collection 'Expressions Regalia'. During the year ended March 2006, the operating income of the company According to sources, which is a specially designed box containing a premium registered 28.16% growth to Rs.9790.53 crores in FY2006 from Rs.7639.45 collection of 15 large cards and five small ones, with envelopes, in five crores in FY2005. The cost of material consumed was up by 45.38% to different designs, which have been created through paintings by Phalguni Rs.4124.90 crores, employee expenses stood up by 15.87% at Rs.541.40 Dasgupta. crores and other expenses grew by 20.40% to Rs.1938.52 crores. Together, . all these expenses combined to increase the operating expenses by 33.35% Looking for Rs. 100 crores business to Rs.6463.15 crores in FY2006 from Rs.4846.89crores in FY2005. The The greeting cards division of ITC is aiming a three-fold increase in its operating profit increased by 19.15% to Rs.3327.38 Crores in year 2006 from turnover to Rs 100 crore in next two years from the current levels of Rs 30 Rs.2729.56 crores in year 2005. The operating profit margin however, crore. As part of its expansion, the company has forayed into the stationery reduced by 256 basis points to 33.99% from 36.55% previous year. business under the Classmate and Paperkraft brand of notebooks. The . stationery (note books) segment is largely unorganized and dominated by Paper Business regional players. The size of the market is estimated to be around Rs 500 Printing wing establishes global presence via pioneering tools crore and is growing at 10 percent. The peak season for the business is ITC packaging & printing business has established a major international between February and July, where 70-80 per cent of the business takes place. presence through various pioneering packaging solutions through its two units The Classmate brand is targeted at school children, while Paperkraft is in Thiruvottiyur (near Chennai) and Monghyr (Bihar). Many of the group targeted at executives and college students. For company the growth is companies of BAT, the single largest stakeholder in ITC, in places such as expected to come from outside the metros because of its strong retail and Uzbekistan, Poland, and France are said to be among the customers. distribution network, launching of occasion-based cards and cards in regional . languages. . ITC has decided to manufacture the food products it currently sells and It is New Business looking at establishing 4-5 manufacturing facilities across the country. In the Stationery Business long term, the company planned to set up 4-5 such manufacturing facilities. A ITC has decided to drive growth in its greetings business by shifting focus single facility could cost upwards of Rs 50 crore which implied that the from greeting cards to volume-driven paper-based stationery and gifting company would invest Rs 200-250 crore in the facilities. ITC Foods currently business. The company foresees that its stationery business will contribute operated primarily four segments--staples, confectionery, ready to eat foods 80% to the division's total revenues as against the current 20%, while it will be and snack foods. vice-versa for greeting cards. Since last year, the company has diversified into . stationary and paper-based gifting products. Carbon credits . ITC Ltd is seeking carbon credits for its massive farm forestation programme, Strategy and expects about Rs 200 crore over the next 10 years. But the company will not (cannot) keep the money it will go to the tribals who own the land. ITC, ITC to set up plant in Haridwar which needs wood for its paperboards business, has so far planted 100 million ITC is setting up a Rs 125.21-crore plant in the BHEL industrial estate at saplings over a 30,000-hectare area. The company proposes to scale up its Haridwar in Uttaranchal to manufacture food and personal care products. The afforestation effort to cover 1 lakh hectares, planting 600 million saplings over company, in its proposal to the Uttaranchal government, had said the plant the next 8-10 years. would employ 415 people and would have a power consumption of 3,000 . kilowatt. ITC's foods business includes categories like ready-to-eat foods, Investments staples, confectionery and snack foods. It owns leading brands like the Sunfeast biscuits, Ashirvaad brand of atta and salts and confectionary brands ITC mulls Rs 2,500 cr investment in ECF paper plant Mint-O and Candyman. ITC Ltd plans to invest Rs 2,500 crore during the next two-three years towards . putting up a greenfield Elemental Chlorine-Free (ECF) pulp and paper plant Acquisition which would increase its annual paper and paperboard manufacturing capacity to 5.5 lakh tonne. Future Possible Acquisitions . ITC Ltd is eyeing the Rs 77-crore Archies Ltd (net profit of Rs 6 crore), the Focus market leader in gifts, greeting cards and stationery space for acquisition. ITC is believed to be close to striking a deal with Archies whose core business of Investing Rs100cr value added sweetmeat-packaging mkt. greeting cards has been under pressure because of increasing usage of Itc Ltd is targeting the national sweetmeat market and West Bengal is its key e-greetings and competition from Hallmark and ITC. focus region for its ECE foodgrade packaging paperboards. The company is . investing Rs 100cr out of which 50% is for West Bengal natioal market. ITC acquires Wimco for Rs 200 crore . ITC has acquired a controlling stake of 74 per cent in Wimco from the Swedish Expansion Plan Match group in a deal that could have cost up to Rs 200 crore at current The company is expanding left right top bottom in the recent times with many prices. Russell Credit Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of ITC LTD, acquired the more huge expansion plans coming in. Recently the company has decided to Wimco shares. The company will next make an open offer to the remaining infuse Rs 15000 crores to expand in the hotel segment, paper and board Wimco shareholders with an aim to delist the company from the bourses. With segment and food business. This expansion is a step taken by the company to the acquisition of Wimco Ltd.the other subsidiary, which get controlled by the become the leader in all the segment in which the company operates. Earlier, ITC, are Wimco Boards Ltd, Wimco Seedlings Ltd, Pavan Poplar Ltd, Prag the company has said that it would infuse Rs 1000 crores in West Bengal Agro Farm Ltd. (WB) in order to increase the capacity of its Hotel and to expand the cigarette . manufacturing facility in WB. Pact with Tripura for bamboo development programme . ITC Ltd has signed an MoU with the Tripura Government for a bamboo Plan to establish a five star hotel development programme. The move has been made to source raw material ITC Ltd has planned to establish a five star hotel in Ahmedabad under the for its growing agarbatti marketing business from the north-eastern region, the banner of ITC-Welcomgroup chain of hotels. The proposed deluxe hotel will other two MoU partners that are actively involved in the project are have a capacity of 250 to 300 rooms and will cost ITC Rs 300 crore. The Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) and ERG, a project will start in 2007 and construction will be finished by 2010. This will be Bangalore-based design-engineering consultancy organisation. the company's fourth hotel in Gujarat and second in Ahmedabad as ITC Ltd . already has a Welcomgroup hotel in Vadodara, hotel Fortune Landmark in ITC to grab M&A opportunities Ahmedabad and Fortune Hotel Galaxy in Vapi under the banner of Fortune ITC is building a war chest to fund acquisitions and grab any other M&A Park Hotels Ltd, which is a subsidiary of ITC Ltd. opportunities that come its way. This year the company acquired matchmaker . Wimco from Swedish Match. The company intends to invest around Rs Planning to set up 54 Choupal Fresh outlets 14,000-15,000-crore in various ventures over the next few years. The company has planned to expand its fruits and vegetable retail and . wholesale business Choupal Fresh by setting up 54 new outlets over the next Pricing three years. The company has also established complete cold chain for ITC increase cigarette prices ensuring the availability of fresh products in the market, besides direct ITC has increased the price of its Wills Classic Mild brand by 10 per cent. A linkages with farmers for sourcing farm fresh produce. The company also pack of 20 now costs Rs 65 compared to Rs 59 earlier. Three months back mulls to increase the number of its rural hypermarket outlets, Choupal Saagar, ITC brands Wills Gold Flake and Wills Navy Cut had seen a 5-9 per cent by nine more stores from the current 11. increase in prices, following a 10 per cent hike in excise duty. The price of . Goldflake had gone up from Rs 28 to Rs 29.50, while Navy Cut was up from New Facilities Rs 23 to Rs 25. Brands Classic, Capstan and Bristol however had been left The company is in the process of setting up new biscuit manufacturing facility untouched. in the state of Uttranchal. Through this unit the company wants to expand in . the biscuit segment market and increase its market share to 12 - 13%. The Rs Business Strategies 70 crore biscuit plant at Uttaranchal would be financed from internal accruals. Retailing in US and European Markets Parle Agro Ltd and Britannia Industries Ltd largely dominate biscuit segment ITC Ltd is planning to take its Wills brand of ready-to-wear garments into the in India. In the future, ITC would consider building more of its own facilities for US and European markets. The company will retail the Wills brand to major other food segments. retailers in these countries, and is in talks with 15 top US and European . retailers in this regard. Marketing Initiatives: . Marketing Initiative for 'Mangaldeep': 'Hrithik Roshan' as Brand Ambassador ITC Ltd has signed up with the bank for export marketing services, to utilize its ITC's John Players has signed Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan as its brand large overseas presence to promote incense sticks with buyers, importers and ambassador. ITC is committed to achieving a leadership position in the Indian distributors abroad. Exim Bank will help locate business partners for ITC apparel market. ITC's brands, Wills Lifestyle and John Players, have, in a agarbattis, identify customers for ITC products directly or through its short span of time, been able to generate high appeal, recognition and loyalty associates and initiate a dialogue while ITC will finalize the deal and ensure among consumers, trade partners and within the fashion industry. supplies and deliveries. . . Backward integration Financial Performance For the nine month ended Dec'06, the operating income of the company also rose by 27.07% to Rs. 8902.96 crores. Further the other income of the company also rose by 10.76% to Rs. 234.21 crores. Owing to the rise in raw material, employee expenses and other expenses by 43.56%, 17.74% and 17.66% respectively to Rs. 4139.45 crores, Rs. 466.93 crores and Rs. 1600.71 crores , the operating expenses also rise by 31.15% to Rs.5876.86 crores. Further the operating profit also increased by 19.85% to Rs.3026.10 crores. After allowing for the interest, depreciation and tax liabilities of Rs. 3.33 crores, Rs. 270.71crores and Rs. 936.99 crores, the net profit of the company also rose by 22.90% to Rs. 2049.28 crores. OPM declined by 205 basis points to 33.99% and NPM declined by 67 basis points to 22.43%. . For the quarter ended Dec'06, the operating income of the company also rose by 23.85% to Rs. 3165.57 crores. Further the other income of the company also rose by 42.78% to Rs. 69.79 crores. Owing to the rise in raw material, employee expenses and other expenses by 37.01%, 20.77% and 13.75% respectively to Rs. 1424.96 crores, Rs. 164.71 crores and Rs. 570.46 crores , the operating expenses also rise by 24.14% to Rs.2082.77 crores. Further the operating profit also increased by 23.28% to Rs. 1082.80 crores. After allowing for the interest, depreciation and tax liabilities of Rs. -0.87 crores, Rs. 92.10 crores and Rs. 343. 96 crores, the net profit of the company also rose by 33.64% to Rs. 717. 40 crores. OPM declined by 15 basis points to 34.21% and NPM rose by 156 basis points to 22.17%. . Cautions • Anti-smoking moves initiated by various state government's like ban on smoking in public places, ban on sale at railway platforms and also curtailed advertising continues to have an impact on cigarette sales. • Smuggled foreign brands, which do not pay excise, also hit growth. These smuggled brands are cheaper without having to pay any of the taxes. • Cigarettes consumption in the total tobacco consumption market has been declining. • Their foray into the personal care sector involves facing well-established competitors like HLL and P&G.