Public sector Braithwaite & Co Ltd, which scripted a remarkable turnaround in business fortune during the last five years, is going to pay a dividend for the first time in its 110-year old history.
The company, which manufactures wagons and containers and offers repair, maintenance and project management consultancy services, is projected to earn enough profit in FY24 to share the surplus with the shareholder, the Indian government.
The Calcutta-based PSU under the ministry of railways is expecting to clock a turnover of Rs 1,500 crore in FY24 compared with Rs 1,043 crore (provisional) in the last fiscal. Profit after tax is also expected to rise in tandem from Rs 50 crore achieved in FY23, Braithwaite officials said.
The company is now debt free, having a net worth of Rs 200 crore, a rise of 33 times from 2017-18 shortly before the present management led by chairman and managing director Yatish Kumar took charge. After being sent to the erstwhile Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) three times and running up accumulated losses, Braithwaite is now sitting on a surplus of Rs 117 crore.
“Braithwaite is a technical organisation. Our target is to capitalise on that and hence the focus on services (maintenance contract and PMC). In the manufacturing segment, containers are likely to be the mainstay of the company going forward,” Kumar said on Wednesday.
The company, which has two principal factories in and around Calcutta, has about 500 people directly on the rolls. It is working closely with Food Corporation of India to develop a new design to carry foodgrain by containers. If the design is approved, Braithwaite can expect large order flows from FCI.
“We are making about 100 containers a month. The target is to produce 1,000 containers a month,” Kumar added.
At present, the manufacturing division accounts for 60 per cent of the revenue while services the rest 40 per cent. The share of services will rise to 50 per cent this year, director finance Kalyan Kumar Coari, said. Braithwaite will also look at allowing idle capacity to be utilised by third party, Salim G. Purushothaman, director (projects), informed.
