Paper firms exceed pre-pandemic levels
The country's paper industry has exceeded its pre-pandemic levels in terms of sales and profits, with the market leader Bashundhara Paper Mills posting a record revenue in the first nine months of the current fiscal year.
Four out of the six listed paper firms published their financials, where three reported business growth, and one turned a loss.
Bashundhara Paper Mills earned a whopping Tk1,070.4 crore revenue, which is the first time in the company's history of nine-month revenues, and its net profit also grew by 51% year-on-year and stood at Tk39.25 crore.
Bangladesh Monospool Paper Manufacturing Company and Paper Processing & Packaging Limited – concerns of the Magura Group – are the ones that joined Bashundhara Paper in the growth achievers' list, although they are way behind the market leader in terms of magnitude of revenue growth.
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What made Bashundhara Paper stands out
A diversified range of tissue products, increase in prices of paper products, and introduction of new products like air fresheners and other toiletries are the factors that did the trick for Bashundhara Paper.
M Mazedul Islam, general manager at Bashundhara Paper, told The Business Standard, "The sale of our products jumped significantly after the pandemic, riding on an increase in demand."
"Also, as raw materials' prices soared amid the Russia-Ukraine war in the last year, prices of our products increased, which was reflected in the revenue. Exports also surged during the period," he added.
According to industry insiders, paper firms witnessed a blow during the pandemic, when educational institutions were closed for a long time.
They faced another blow when raw materials' prices went up, fuelled by the Russia-Ukraine conflict last year.
But now both the situations have eased. Educational institutions are open and raw materials' prices fell globally, helping the paper firms soar.
However, the dollar crisis is still making businesses frown as importing raw materials has become complex, say the industry people.
Higher demand for tissues than for paper
According to Bashundhara Paper officials, products like A4 or A3 papers, exercise books and packaging papers used to make up a lion's share of revenue for the company.
But after the breaking out of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company's tissue and hygiene products got a big push and their sales jumped massively.
And in the first nine months of FY23, revenue from tissue products like facial tissues, paper napkins, wallet tissues, toilet tissues, kitchen towels, and hand towels surpassed that from the paper products.
Revenue from paper products grew by 18% to Tk390.81 crore, while that from tissue products jumped 32% and stood at Tk427.35 crore.
Sales of hygiene products such as diapants, diapers, napkins, baby wipes, wet tissues, face masks, and anti-bacterial wipes declined by 18% year-on-year to Tk134.73 crore in the July to March period of FY23.
Exports grew by 28% and local sales by 18% than the same time of the previous fiscal year.
The newly introduced toiletries segment added over Tk10 crore in the company's net revenue.
How others fared
Monospool Paper's profit grew by 77% year-on-year and stood atTk4.5 crore, while Paper Processing's grew by only 2% to Tk3.1 crore.
On the other hand, Hakkani Pulp incurred a loss of Tk1.33 crore in the first nine months of FY23, despite seeing a 135% revenue growth.
The company had also turned deep losses in FY22 and FY21.
But the good news is that the company has made a profit of Tk22.39 lakh in the January to March quarter of FY23 as its sales jumped 74% to Tk33.40 crore.
Lastly, Sonali Paper and Board Mills, and Khulna Printing & Packaging have failed to publish their July to March financials for the current fiscal year.
As per rules, a listed company is to declare its quarterly financials within one month after the quarter has ended.
Therefore, the two were supposed to approve and declare their financials by April this year.
