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Everything seems to be going in favor of Best Agrolife Ltd. (BAL) these days. BAL has moved to Group A from Group B of companies on BSE. The change will take effect from 21 December 2022. The company was already making bullish growth and now with this new development, it has garnered a lot of curiosity and interest from investors.
As a research-based organization, BAL is serving the farming community by bringing in world-class and cost-effective farm solutions in the form of novel agrochemical formulations. The company has presence across insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, and plant growth regulators. It is known for indigenously developing and marketing world-class and cost-effective farm solutions in the form of novel agrochemical formulations. Currently, BAL has 7,000 MTPA and 30,000 MTPA technicals and formulation manufacturing capacity respectively through three of its manufacturing plants in Gajaraula, Greater Noida, and Jammu & Kashmir. The company has fast expanded its distribution network and product portfolio in niche segments and got listed itself among the top 15 agrochemical companies in India. Currently, it boasts to have more than 5200 distributors in India and it retains an unrivaled portfolio of 360+ formulations and more than 80 technical manufacturing licenses.
Focused on its First-to-Market strategy, BAL has transformed its business model from being a generic player to a predominantly branded player now. The company is focused on manufacturing and launching import substitutes of many active ingredients indigenously and introducing 2-3 patented/specialty formulation products every year. This year, BAL launched several new products that strengthened its financials significantly. The company introduced three new research-based products in the insecticide space namely Axeman, Ronfen (patented ternary insecticide), and Reveal, one new herbicide with the brand name Tombo and one new insecticide combination Warden. With the launch of Citigen and Vistara, BAL became the first Indian agrochemical company to manufacture CTPR (market size of more than Rs. 2800 crore) technical indigenously. The company also got the patent for the indigenous manufacturing of an in-house developed ternary herbicide which the company plans to launch in near future with the brand name ‘Shot Down’. Other than the above products BAL has been granted the patent for the first-of-its-kind fungicidal composition of Cyazofamid, Dimethomorph, and Difenoconazole (Market Size Rs. 350 crore) and registration for the indigenous manufacturing of Pyroxasulfone technical (Market Size Rs. 450 Crore).
The tremendous success of these newly launched products led to solid performance in Q2 FY23 and H1 FY23. The company posted a multi-fold jump in its consolidated revenue at Rs. 700.3 crore jumping 115.9% on YoY basis and 51% QoQ basis. The EBITDA stood at Rs. 182.5 crore, displaying 418.1% YoY growth and 176.9% QoQ growth. PAT stood at 129.82 crores a growth of 415.4% on YoY basis and 223.4% on QoQ basis. The company reported a 74% YoY rise in revenue to Rs. 1164 crore, EBITDA margin expanded by 1078 bps YOY to 21.4% (vs 10.6% in H1FY22) and PAT rose by 233% YoY to Rs. 169.9 crore in H1 FY23. The company has many more such products in the pipeline this year, further accelerating its growth.
While CARE Ratings Limited assigned a ‘CARE A-‘ rating to the long-term bank facilities of the company with a stable outlook in October 2022 the total stake of the promoter and promoter group BAL increased from 47.30% to 48.19% when Mr. Vimal Kumar, the Founder of Best Agrolife Limited, purchased a total of 65000 equity shares on 28 November 2022. In fact, Vimal Kumar bought 1,47,481 equity shares in the company on 15 November 2022, making it a purchase of a total of 212481 equity shares during November itself.
With all the above-mentioned factors on its side, BAL is speculated to emerge as a strong option with sustainable benefits for investors. There is a lot of potential in this company and we need to keep a keen eye on how things unfold further for this one in future!