Renata’s sales jump amid pandemic

Renata Limited, one of the top five drug manufacturers in the country, has reported a 31 percent jump in its sales in the third quarter of the 2019-20 financial year.

It has posted the highest growth among all pharmaceutical companies, said an investment market researcher wishing to remain anonymous.

The sales of Square Pharmaceuticals, the market leader, rose by just 12 percent in that quarter, and the revenue of the pharmaceuticals market grew at 16.4 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, he added. 

The market analyst said Renata, the descendant of Pfizer in Bangladesh, has yielded more than 180 times the returns for its patient shareholders for over 16 years till December last year.

In March this year, the state-owned Investment Corporation of Bangladesh purchased shares worth Tk237 crore from Renata Limited, raising ICB's investment in the pharmaceutical sector to 6.32 percent.

A Renata official said the company occasionally trains its employees about how to curb novel coronavirus infections. "We run our business adhering to the World Health Organization's directions. As a result, we are doing business uninterrupted."

According to the third quarter unaudited financial statement – which was disclosed on Sunday evening – the company reported medicine sales of Tk647.83 crore – an increase from Tk495.24 crore in the same period of the previous year. 

The company's net profit also increased by 29 percent compared to the third quarter of the previous year, and stood at Tk106.76 crore. Its earnings per share were Tk12.05.

Meanwhile, in the three quarters of the current financial year, the total sales of the company stood at Tk1,909.26 crore, which is 25 percent higher than those of the previous year. At that time, the net profit was Tk305.60 crore, and earnings per share Tk34.50. 

Renata remains the market leader in the animal health sector and its sales grew 28 percent to Tk376.95 crore against the industry's growth of 9.4 percent.

The company has set up a business expansion plan and has already started constructing an animal nutrition factory in Mymensingh.

The company gave 100 percent cash and 10 percent stock dividend to its shareholders in the last fiscal year.  

Renata's shares closed at Tk1,026.20 on Monday on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. Its highest price reached Tk1,350 per share within the last year.  

Renata Limited entered the stock market in 1979 and its authorised capital is Tk250 crore.

The company's current paid-up capital is Tk88.58 crore. Sponsor directors hold 51.17 percent shares of the company while institutional, foreign and general investors have 19 percent, 22.77 percent and 7.06 percent of the company's shares, respectively.

The company got approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for three products: Risperidone, Metoprolol Tartrate, and Glycopyrrolate, which are prescribed for schizophrenia, hypertension and peptic ulcers, respectively, at the end of last year. It is the third pharmaceuticals company to receive approval for drug exports to the US market – after Square Pharmaceuticals and Beximco Pharma.

Now the company is exporting drugs worth around Tk50 crore to 27 countries.

The company has already purchased land in Gazipur to expand its factory, and aims to establish a subsidiary in Ireland to reach the European market.