Financial services to dominate for some time: Ajay Piramal, Piramal Enterprises

Talking to ET Now, Ajay Piramal, Piramal Enterprises, says among BSE 100 companies, is amongst the top five in a five-year period in terms of top line as well as profitability.

Edited excerpts:

How has Piramal Enterprises performed?

We have grown at 27% in terms of top line, out of which the financial services loan book has grown by 79% and so has the pharma loan book grown by 12%. In this sense, now for the last 12 quarters, we have shown consistently high performance. Our net profit performance for last 12 quarters has been better. We have grown almost 30% on profit in the last nine quarters. Today amongst the BSE 100 companies, we are amongst the top five in a five-year period in terms of top line as well as in profitability.

Now you are a diversified conglomerate. You have your fingers in many pies, many sectors going ahead. Do you increasingly see financial services occupying a greater chunk of the revenue mix of the conglomerate?

As of now, yes. Financial services is the larger part of the conglomerate and it will continue so for some time.

Talking about financial services, there is also the proposed merger between IDFC and the Shriram Group. Some concerns were raised in the analyst community regarding whether or not the RBI would be open to the flexibility that both sides required as far as the deal structure is concerned any update on that end since the last announcement made by both the parties any conversations that you have had informally with the regulator any comfort?

We have started formal conversations with the regulator but there is no further update. We are still in talks with them and discussing what the options are and I am hopeful that the regulator will do what is right.

Coming back to your performance during this quarter there is a lot of flux that is currently there in the pharmaceutical sector. We have seen that several domestic companies under the layer of the USFDA compliance, continues to be an issue . What is your take on the extent of compliance that certain Indian pharma companies now have to compulsorily undergo to satisfy the USFDA?

So during this quarter I can just talk about ourselves we had seven regulatory audits and 58 audits from the customers and all of them have gone off without any issue.