Piramal Enterprises, a Rs.4,450 crore well diversified company in the segments like pharmaceuticals, financial services and information management, has suffered setback during the second quarter ended September 2014 due to provision in respect of scaling down the R&D activities of the New Chemical Entity division. Its consolidated net loss increased to Rs.390.79 crore from Rs.32.26 crore in the corresponding period of last year. The company provided Rs.374.15 crore as exceptional loss for scaling down its R&D activities. The company successfully cut down its interest burden to Rs 143 crore from Rs.217 crore. Its EBDITA also declined by 8.1 per cent to Rs.227.16 crore from Rs.248.12 crore.

Its net sales improved by 9.5 per cent to Rs.1,225 crore from Rs.1,119 crore. The company's pharmaceutical sales increased by 7.6 per cent to Rs.785.66 crore from Rs.730.22 crore in the similar period of last year. The sales from financial services including strategic investments went up sharply by 31.6 per cent to Rs.236.13 crore from Rs 179.37 crore and that of information management division improved only by 0.8 per cent to Rs.222.99 crore from Rs.221.30 crore. Pharmaceutical sales worked out to 63.1 per cent of its total net sales followed by financial services around 19 per cent and information management 18 per cent during the quarter ended September 2014.

For the first half ended September 2014, Piramal's consolidated net sales improved by 15.1 per cent to Rs.2,391 crore from Rs.2,078 crore in the same period of last year. The company registered net profit of Rs.2,506 crore as against a net loss of Rs.178.92 crore on account of gain on sale of investment in Vodafone India Ltd during first quarter ended June 2014. Its foreign exchange gains declined to Rs.26.58 crore from Rs.201.32 crore in the last period.

The pharmaceutical sales for the first half increased by 13.5 per cent to Rs.1,525 crore from Rs.1,344 crore in the similar period of last year and contributed around 63 per cent to its total net sales. Its subsidiary Piramal Imaging SA has commercially launched its diagnostic imaging agent Neuraceq (Florbetaben F18) in the European markets. Consequently the subsidiary has capitalised product development costs of Rs.254 crore in the current quarter.

Piramal has entered into an agreement with Navin Fluorine International Ltd to form a joint venture company with holding ratio of 51:49 to develop, manufacture and sell speciality fluorochemicals to be used for its healthcare business.