Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, a Rs.1,900 crore plus pharma major from Chennai, has suffered heavy setback during the quarter ended September 2013 and its standalone net loss went up sharply to Rs.200.35 crore from Rs.19.95 crore in the corresponding quarter of last year due to hefty interest cost and exceptional loss. The net sales increased 14.1 per cent to Rs.377.25 crore from Rs.330.55 crore. With huge net loss, its EPS worked out to negative Rs.28.44 as compared to negative Rs.2.83 in the last period.

The company's application for Debt Restructuring has been admitted by the Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) Empowered Group and preparation of the restructuring package is under progress. The company also decided to wind up the wholly owned subsidiary in Japan.

Though the employees cost marginally lower, its other expenditure increased sharply by 75.1 per cent to Rs.162.40 crore from Rs.92.73 crore. Its interest cost went up by 58.1 per cent to Rs.120.88 crore from Rs.76.47 crore and exceptional loss moved up to Rs.14.70 crore from exceptional profit of Rs.46.22 crore, which impacted its bottomline adversely during the quarter under review.

K Raghavendra Rao, chairman and managing director, said, “Despite the tough liquidity and working capital related issues we are going through, we have managed to sustain sales and operating profitability which denotes the basic strength of the business. We are currently in an advanced stage of discussion with regard to the CDR package with the banks. The approval of CDR package will help us put operations back on track and given our sound quality processes and product pipeline we are confident of a stronger performance going forward.”

Orchid has entered into a Business Transfer Agreement (BTA) with Hospira Healthcare India Pvt Ltd for the sale and transfer of its penicillin and Penem API business and the API facility located in Aurangabad together with an associated process R&D infrastructure located in Chennai. The BTA is likely to get completed after the approval of the CDR package.

The consolidated net loss for the 18 months period ended September 2013 touched to Rs.558.06 crore from a net profit of Rs.97.48 crore for the 12 months ended March 2012. Its consolidated net sales on an annualised basis declined by 31.4 per cent to Rs.1,262 crore from Rs.1,839 crore in the previous year of 12 months period. The company had exercised the option provided under the Companies (Accounting Standards) Amendment Rules, 2006 dated March 31, 2009 and the amount remaining to be amortised in the financial statements as at September 30, 2013 on account of exercising the option stood at Rs.176.58 crore.

The company filed 43 ANDAs in US up to September 2013 and received approval for 32 ANDAs. Similarly, it filed 30 marketing authorizations in the EU region and received 30 approvals. The company filed 90 DMFs in US and 21 filings in European market.

Its consolidated reserves and surplus declined sharply to Rs.315 crore during the 18 months period ended September 2013 from Rs.1,062 in the previous year of 12 months ended March 2012. Its total borrowings increased by 41 per cent to Rs.2,427 crore from Rs.1,721 crore and trade payables increased by 30.3 per cent to Rs.522 crore from Rs.401 crore. Its current liabilities and provisions went up to Rs.1,113 crore from Rs.511 crore.