GDP: GDP growth may be less than 5% in Q2, to improve from Q3: Adi Godrej

How has Godrej Industries performed?
The numbers depends on how our various businesses have performed and considering the economic situation, our businesses have performed well and so our numbers have been very good particularly the profit growth.

The profit growth is 128%, what has particularly attributed to that jump?
One, some of the businesses have done very well. Second, we sold one of our businesses called Nature’s Basket and in this case last quarter when we had sold it we had provided for some of the losses. In consolidated accounts, we had always been writing it down to the book price. So, whatever we wrote down last quarter, we had to write back in considerable amount. That is one of the reasons why our profit growth was much higher this time.

There is also a fundraise of about Rs 750 crore. Where will this funding be used?
This is generally an amount we have provided if required because Godrej Industries invests in other group companies, subsidiary companies, associate companies etc. This is a provision for such investments as and when required. There are no current definitive plans.

You also said your key businesses have performed well. We saw quite a bit of growth in properties. In FMCG also, there is a huge turnaround as far as volumes are concerned. But there are a few pressure points in Godrej Agrovet. What is your outlook on agri business?
Generally we expect our agri business to pick up. The rural economy was under pressure last year and even then, we had better performance in Godrej Agrovet than last year. But we expect that once the rural economy is back to normal, the normal high growth rates in Godrej Agrovet will prevail.

Palm oil prices are now picking up internationally after a slowdown. How do you see the business reacting to that?
That will help the business because the palm oil prices in India will also go up as they have globally.

But Godrej Properties business development is one sector where you have done really well. What is your outlook for Godrej Properties? What kind of opportunities are you looking at?
There will be a lot of growth, Godrej Properties has done very well we expect it will be our fastest growing business. We expect it to do very well in the years to come.

We have seen SBI and a couple of other people have downgraded GDP growth to less than 5% for this quarter. What is your view on that and do we see some kind of revival on the cards?
The GDP growth in quarter two will be even lower than it was in quarter one. So Q1 was 5%, but Q2 GDP growth may be even lower. Third quarter (Q3) onwards, I expect GDP growth to pick up and next year it should be back to normal.