Piramal Enterprises, (formerly known as Piramal Healthcare), has posted strong growth in operations with diversification into financial services and information management during the quarter ended December 2012. The figures for the quarter are not comparable to the previous quarter of last year on account of acquisition of Decision Resources Group (DRG) during the first quarter of 2012 and de-merger of New Chemical Entity (NCE) unit of Piramal Life Sciences Ltd into the company during the previous year.

The net profit went up to Rs.61.07 crore from Rs.8.52 crore in the similar quarter of last year. The company's consolidated sales for the third quarter ended December 2012 increased by 75.2 per cent to Rs.982 crore from Rs.560 crore in the corresponding period of last year.

Its pharmaceutical sales increased by 14.5 per cent to Rs.621 crore from Rs.542 crore, financial services including strategic investments by 43 per cent to Rs.108 crore from Rs.75 crore and that from information management to Rs.265 crore as against nil in the last period. The pharmaceutical segment incurred a loss before tax, interest and forex gain of Rs.24.35 crore as compared to Rs.104.17 crore. The Financial services segment also received setback as its profit declined to Rs.41.78 crore from Rs.70.27 crore during the quarter under review. However, information management segment achieved profit of Rs.94.40 crore.

During the quarter under review, it acquired 95 per cent stake in Sigmatic Ltd (services offered under the brand name Abacus International), a UK-based analytics and market access solutions firm for an enterprise value of Rs.182 crore.

For the nine months period ended December 2012, Piramal incurred a consolidated net loss of Rs.26.87 crore as against a net profit of Rs.150.18 crore, despite net sales went up sharply by 74 per cent to Rs.2,569 crore from Rs.1,276 crore on account of acquisition of DRG and NCE unit. DRG acquisition was completed in June 2012 while NCE unit was de-merged into Piramal in third quarter ended December 2012. Its interest cost went up sharply to Rs.350 crore from Rs.52.81 crore in the corresponding period of last year and other income declined to Rs.145.88 crore from Rs.206.96 crore. Further, employees cost increased significantly to Rs.601.65 crore from Rs.314.69 crore and R&D expenditure to Rs.206.10 crore from Rs.172.61 crore in the same nine months period of last year.

The company's pharma solutions business grew by 16 per cent to Rs.1,123 crore during the nine months ended December 2012 from Rs.963 crore in the similar period of last year. The revenues from overseas facilities recorded strong growth of 21.2 per cent to Rs.459 crore. Critical care business grew by 66 per cent to Rs.466 crore. The sales of OTC & ophthalmology business increased by 22.7 per cent to Rs.208 crore. The revenues from DRG were at Rs.495 crore. DRG continued to achieve a high customer retention rate of over 96 per cent in 2012 and has retained all 2011 top 20 customers.