Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd (DRL), third largest pharma entity in India after Ranbaxy and Cipla, has chosen to park its large funds in the financial schemes of Mutual Funds during the year ended March 2004. Its investments shot up by 290 per cent to Rs 612.05 crore from Rs 156.64 crore in the previous year. The company invested Rs 253.62 crore in various Mutual Funds schemes and Rs 150 crore in Non Convertible Debentures of Citicorp Finance (India) Ltd.

The company invested Rs 170.06 crore in Mutual Fund of Standard Chartered Grindlays (SCG) Cash Funds, SCG Floating Rate Fund and SCG Fixed Maturity. It has also invested Rs 30.03 crore in Reliance Fixed Term Scheme (Annual) and Rs 20 crore in Birla FMP Yearly. DRL put Rs 10 crore each in Kotak Fixed Maturity Plan and HDFC Fixed Investment plan. Besides, it has invested Rs 4.5 crore, Rs 5 crore and Rs 4 crore in the units of Alliance Cash Manager scheme, Prudential ICICI Liquid plan and HDFC Cash Management Fund Savings Plan respectively.

The company's aggregate cost of unquoted investments went up sharply by 129 per cent to Rs 419.48 crore in 2003-'04 from Rs 183.13 crore in the previous year. During the year, DRL has invested Rs 25.13 crore in equity capital of Dr Reddy's Bio-Sciences Ltd and stepped up its investment in equity capital of Aurigene Discovery Technologies Ltd from Rs 25 crore to Rs 88.64 crore. Similarly, the company increased its investment in Dr Reddy's Farmaceutica Do Brasil Ltda to Rs 9.71 crore from Rs 1.93 crore in 2002-'03. The company sold 51 per cent stake of the equity shares of Compact Electric Ltd during the year 2003-'04 and it is now holding remaining 49 per cent.

The company's aggregate cost of quoted investments amounted to Rs 0.46 crore and the market value of the same is worked out to Rs 1.32 crore.

The company's other income during the year ended March 2004 increased to Rs 75.74 crore from Rs 46.46 crore in the previous year. Out of the total other income, the interest amount received went up to Rs 41.91 crore from Rs 33.38 crore and income from redemption of mutual fund units reached at Rs 2.48 core as against Rs 0.63 crore. The significant rise in investment in the 2003-04 may push its other income in the current year 2004-'05.