Business of Page Industries Ltd.
The company was set up in 1995 to bring in the high end innerwear JOCKEY to the Indian market. While the promoters were associated with JOCKEY for the last 36 years as there sole licensees in the Philippines market with the opening up of the Indian markets in the early 1990s the promoters sought to fill a void in the Indian innerwear market by setting up shop in India and manufacturing, distributing and marketing JOCKEY products in the country. The company has been awarded “the best licensee of the year” for the year 2006 by JOCKEY and enjoys a relationship with the promoters which goes as back as 1959.
Strengths of Page Industries
While the market is being flooded with a host of IPOs following factors differentiate Page Industries with some of the other IPOs slated to enter the market:
- Long history which ensures that the promoters are not fly by night operators but rather experts in their chosen field of business having been successfully delivered for over 4 decades now.
- High product differentiation in terms of the brand loyalty enjoyed by JOCKEY which is a result of the existence of brand for over 130 years now.
- Integrated in house operations which ensure productivity and efficiency. Page Industries have eight adjacent factories in a single location which is engaged in everything that the company does right from cutting the fabric to packaging the finished product.
- The company exists in the retail and apparel segment which is expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the Indian market.
Financials
The company has grown steadily and at a decent rate in the last few years and the revenues have climbed up from Rs.377 million to Rs.1037 million from 2002 to the fiscal 2005, for the nine months ended 30.9.2006 the company clocked in revenues of Rs.741 million. The company also has a profitable record in the last few years and profits after tax have grown at a steady rate from Rs.17.56 million in 2002 to Rs.113.91 million in the last fiscal. The same is reflected in the EPS which for the last fiscal was Rs.467.75. On top of this the company also had a positive cash flow from operations in the last few years.
Objects of the Issue
Page Industries plans to raise funds for the following purposes:
1. Brand building
2. Expansion of garment manufacturing capacity in existing facility
3. Setting up of new garment manufacturing facility at Bommasandra, Bangalore
4. Expansion of elastic manufacturing facility
5. Expansion of Socks manufacturing facility
6. Corporate head office in the Central Business District
7. Implementation of new generation ERP software ( SAP)
8. Modernization of production process
9. General Corporate Purposes and
10. To meet the expenses of issue
Conclusion
In all one looks forward to this IPO with the hope that the company does not over price its issue and gives investors the chance to buy into this fairly stable and growing company at a decent issue price.
