The Chandigarh based pharma company, Ind-Swift Ltd jacked up net profit by 20.9 per cent to Rs 2.71 crore during the quarter ended September 30, 2002. Though the turnover of the company at Rs 44.36 crore recorded a faster increase of 41.1 per cent during the said period, there has been a sharper rise of 44.7 per cent in total expenditure especially in raw material consumption. As a result, the operating margin fell to 9.4 per cent from 11.1 per cent.

During the first half of the current fiscal 2002-03, the company achieved a turnover growth of 49.5 per cent at Rs 89.01 crore. The net profit at the same time spurted 38.7 per cent to Rs 5.66 crore. These growth rates indicated that the company had shown an impressive performance during Q1. The operating margin, however, declined to 9.4 per cent from 11.7 per cent. The net profit margin on sales works out lower at 6.4 per cent compared to 6.9 per cent during the corresponding period of previous year.

The company had launched 30 new products in the first half of current financial year, the major one were among the fastest growing therapeutic segments of cardio-vascular and anti-depressants. The EPS for the first half is estimated higher at Rs 12.88 as compared to Rs 9.28 in the previous half.