Amrutanjan Pure Healthy Essence

2011
Amrutanjan gets Relief from brand conflict Chennai, Aug. 25, 2011 For 117 years, the company sold its brand under the eponymous Amrutanjan as a fix-all from headaches and colds to aches and pains. However, to overcome becoming a generic term for headache cure, Amrutanjan Health Care Ltd has planned a sub-brand, Relief, for its cold management products such as cough syrups, cold-rubs, lozenges and inhalers. Mr S. Sambhu Prasad, CEO and Managing Director, says, Similarly, our health and personal care products including hand sanitiser and corn caps will come under the brand Purity. To coincide with the launch of its sub-brands, the company has also launched its redesigned logo with new brand positioning as Pure healthy essence' and completely new packaging targeted at the youth. The company recently diversified into the food and personal care product categories. It launched a range of ready-to-eat food products including sambar rice, carrot halwa and dhal, packed in retort pouches under the brand Kitchen Delights'; and hand sanitiser, corn caps, and Comfy-branded sanitary napkins. Early this year, following its acquisition of still drink brand Fruitnik from Siva's, it forayed into the non-carbonated soft drink segment too. In the pain management category, with Amrutanjan Pain balms (in yellow and white variants), roll-on, cream and spray, the company competes with international brands such as Procter and Gamble (Vicks), GSK (Iodex) and Reckitt Benckiser (Moov) and another home-grown brand Emami (Zandu). In the Rs 1,700-crore rubs and balms market, with close to 10 per cent share, Amrutanjan is the third largest player after Vicks and Zandu. After we acquired, the Fruitnik brand is now the third largest selling brand in its segment in Tamil Nadu, said Mr Prasad. According to him, the Tamil Nadu market size for still drinks' is Rs 375 crore, and Fruitnik commands 6.3 per cent of this market. In this segment, Coca-Cola's Maaza is the market leader with 34 per cent share, followed by PepsiCo's Slice (31 per cent). In another development, the promoters of the company have bought back over 1 lakh shares from the open market in the last three months taking their total hold in the company to over 50 per cent from the earlier 48.5 per cent. During 2009-10, it bought back 1.7 lakh shares from the market. For the quarter ended June 30, 2011, the company posted a turnover of Rs 14.65 crore, against Rs 6.80 crore in the comparable previous year period. The company's share closed on the BSE at Rs 774.55 with close to 90,000 shares changing hands today, from the previous close of Rs 780.90. Amrutanjan plans entry into energy drinks, ready-to-eat foods biz Chennai, March 6, 2011 Amrutanjan Health Care Ltd, a 117-year-old company known for its eponymous pain management products in the OTC (over the counter) pharma space, is planning to diversify into energy and health drinks and ready-to-eat food segments, said Mr S. Sambhu Prasad, CEO and Managing Director of the company. Fruitnik buy As a first step in this direction, the company last week acquired a beverages company Siva's Soft Drink Pvt Ltd, for a consideration of Rs 26 crore. Siva's is the owner of the fruit-based soft drink brand

Fruitnik and carbonated soft drink brand Rejoice with a turnover of Rs 16 crore. Our intention is to use the Fruitnik brand as a platform to launch our energy and health drinks that are in the development stage with us, he said. Besides, Amrutanjan is planning to launch a range of ready-to-eat agro foods including sambar rice, carrot halwa and dhal, packed in retort pouches under the brand Kitchen Delights' for the domestic and export markets. According to Mr Prasad, these products are to be sourced from Chandirarhbased Punjab Agro Industries. Youth appeal Rubbishing the market talk that Amrutanjan is an acquisition target', he said, In fact, we are in the process of re-launching our mother brand Amrutanjan with new brand positioning, to appeal to youth, in the next couple of months. He said the idea is to consolidate its flagship product category pain management to compete with multinational brands such as GSK (Iodex), P&G (Vicks) and Reckitt Benckiser (Moov), more vigorously. Amrutanjan is present in the pain management, cough and cold, health and home care categories with 13 products and over 40 SKUs (stock keeping units). The company is also expected expand its product portfolio by getting into complementary products such as sanitary napkins in the women's hygiene products category and handwash liquid in the home care segment. Big presence It is currently the second largest player (in terms of number of units sold) in the rubs and balms category after Emami; and we are neck-to-neck with Move for the third place after Vicks and Zandu in terms of volume and value, Mr Prasad said, quoting AC Nielsen. On the exports front, it has registered the brand Amrutanjan in 13 countries to facilitate export. Besides, the company is also reformulating some of its products to export to the US market, so as to comply with the loal regulatory code. Amrutanjan last year posted a turnover of Rs 89 crore and we are well on track to surpass the Rs 100-crore mark this year, Mr Prasad said. Amrutanjan to enter beverages business Chennai, March 3, 2011 Amrutanjan Health Care Ltd is set to foray into the beverages business with the acquisition of Siva's Soft Drink Pvt Ltd's Fruitnik brand. The company today informed the stock exchange that it has entered into a pact with Siva's Soft Drink to acquire its soft drink and fruit-based beverages business along with the brand Fruitnik for Rs 26.20 crore. Fruitnik, a pulp-based flavoured fruit drink, is a 50-year-old brand well known in the South, particularly Tamil Nadu. Amrutanjan has a prominent presence in the OTC pharma segment. It posted net profit of Rs 3 crore for the quarter ended December 2010 on a turnover of Rs 34 crore. For 2009-10, it posted a net profit of Rs 12 crore on a turnover of Rs 89 crore. The scrip closed the day on BSE at Rs 639.40 gaining 10.38 per cent from the previous day's close of Rs 579.25. It's all about wellness Amrutanjan, the heritage pain balm company, has acquired Fruitnik, a juice brand. MD & CEO Sambhu Prasad tells BrandLine what the synergies are. The smell of menthol is all pervasive as one enters Amrutanjan's office on Luz Church Road in Chennai's Mylapore. The 15-minute wait to meet the Managing Director and CEO of the company, Sambhu Prasad, for an interview is made interesting by old newspaper cuttings of the brand's advertisements, neatly framed and hung on the wall alongside an old wooden staircase. Even the

interiors are muted. Conservatism shows at every level. Prasad is the fourth generation entrepreneur. BrandLine met him a day after the Rs 90-crore company acquired fruit-based beverage brand Fruitnik. During the 40-minute interview, he answered a range of questions on the rationale behind the acquisition. To a specific question, he said size notwithstanding, Amrutanjan is a 117-year-old company that went public way back in 1936, and it's been a great honour to sit in this chair and run the company. Excerpts: For over 100 years, Amrutanjan remained an OTC pharma product company. Why did you acquire Fruitnik, and how will it complement your existing product portfolio? First thing, we wanted to diversify into the beverages segment. Second, if you take the beverages market, the health shift is very obvious. Globally, people are now slowly shifting from carbonated soft drinks (CSD) to natural, fruit-based drinks. The Rs 16-crore Fruitnik is more of a natural, fruit-based drink brand than CSD. Though the company also has the Rejoice brand of CSD, our focus will only be on the natural fruit-based drink. Would consumers be able to relate the brand Amrutanjan, which is almost synonymous with pain management, to a beverage? Won't they find it difficult? Maybe, yes. But, the brand Fruitnik' will anyway be retained. We want to ride on its equity. To say a few things about our brand attributes we are currently working on a rebranding exercise to launch our mother brand Amrutanjan. In the process, we spoke to a lot of brand-loyal customers. The takeaway is that the brand, in addition to pain balms, is also driven by other attributes such as strong', pure', natural', health' and wellness'. So, we believe Fruitnik fits in well with Amrutanjan's equity and brand image of health and wellness. Moreover, we see Fruitnik as a vehicle for us to launch our own health and energy drink products that are in the development stage. It's a well-known brand in the South and gives us a ready platform for our proposed products. Will you tweak Fruitnik's formula to make it a health drink? It's too early to say anything about that. But if you see, a lot of beverages sold abroad have ginseng in them. Similarly, you can add vitamins to fruit juices. Today, consumers want some health benefits from whatever they buy. Fruitnik is known only in Tamil Nadu. Will you take the brand to other regions? We will. We will take Fruitnik to other parts of the country. To start with, we will take the brand to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. While the erstwhile owners did not have the means to take it to other parts of the country, we have the necessary distribution network in place for that. Fruit drinks are a different category altogether. It calls for different distribution and marketing expertise. Does Amrutanjan have all that it needs to run the show? If you take Amrutanjan and the way we turned around the brand in the last four to five years from a Rs 60-crore brand to a Rs 100-crore brand now, competing with multinationals such as GSK, Reckitt Benckiser and P&G in the pain and cold' space, we picked up a lot of lessons. We feel we can apply some of those lessons in growing the beverage brand as well. Do you see any synergy in the distribution models? There are synergies in distribution and procurement too. If we take the distribution side of it, barring a few outlets such as paan shops and restaurants, both pain balms and fruit drinks are sold in common outlets now. Even in the supply chain management, there is synergy. If Fruitnik is all about glass bottles, there is no synergy. Because, glass bottles are recycled they are collected every evening and cleaned and then used again. More than 90 per cent of Fruitnik's revenue comes from the PET bottle SKUs. So, on the procurement front too, both Amrutanjan and Fruitnik buy PET bottles from the same suppliers. Besides, we recently revamped our entire distribution system. Earlier, our products were stocked and distributed mostly by pharma stockists. But now, even FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) stockists stock our products. Today, I can proudly say our distribution system is

more like that of FMCG. This, in my opinion, is the most important thing to reach your product everywhere on time. So, now both pharma as well as FMCG stockists stock your products Yes. Earlier it used to be in the ratio of 80:20 now it's almost 50:50. Any plan to foray into the foods segment? Very soon. We are planning to launch a range of ready-to-eat foods packaged in retort pouches that will have a shelf life of one year. To start with, there will be 12 products including bisibelebath, dal, sabzi and gajar ka halwa under the brand Kitchen Delights'. We are targeting mainly the export market. Are you going to manufacture them on your own or outsource? We are going to source them from Punjab Agro Industries in Chandigarh. Also adding more products to your OTC pharma kitty? Of course. We are getting into the women's hygiene products category very soon. In the next couple of weeks, we will launch sanitary napkins. And then, adding handwash liquid to our homecare products category. Currently we have only hand sanitiser Nogerms in that. We are also evaluating some personal care products. How are you going to fund these projects? We have enough reserves in our books. And, as of now we are a debt-free company. Moreover, these projects are not highly capital-intensive. How has the market for pain balms been growing? There has been a steady growth in the market. It has been growing at 10-15 per cent a year. What's your market share? We have 10 per cent share. Today, there are 500 pain balm brands in the country. And 10 of us control 70 per cent of the market share. That's why no player in this segment has more than 15 per cent share in this category. Who's the market leader in this segment? In terms of value and volume, Vicks is the market leader with roughly 15 per cent share. Vicks is followed by Zandu Balm. Amrutanjan and Moov are neck to neck for the third place. However, in terms of the number of units sold, we are the second largest after Emami. Our Rs 2 sachet pack drives the growth here. Do you feel any cost pressure? Like the FMCG industry, we are also suffering margin pressure. Menthol is the key ingredient for our products. Menthol prices have doubled since last year. A few people control the prices. There was talk that Amrutanjan was an acquisition target That's absolutely baseless. Why would we sell the company? This is a 117-year-old company older than Ford Motors. We went public in 1936, and have been profitable ever since. Moreover, Amrutanjan is a testimony to Indian innovation. We want to expand and grow the company. We are currently working on a rebranding exercise, and will soon relaunch the mother brand Amrutanjan with new positioning that will appeal to youth.

What's your growth target? We want to grow gradually. Our target is to grow at 30 to 35 per cent a year. We do not say we want to grow 100 per cent in two years or earlier. Do you plan to export also? Yes. Export will be our future growth market. We have registered the brand Amruntanjan in 13 countries. The US is also one of our target markets. We are currently working on reformulating some of our products to comply with the US regulatory norms. How's your pain relief and wellness spa business Osmosys doing? To be honest, we are not able to find the right model. We are getting walk-ins. We are really serious about that business. We currently have only one outlet and planning one more now. But, now I think we need to go to the medical community, instead of just approaching consumers. People generally go to the primary physician if they suffer any pain. Only if the physician recommends they go there. So, we need to convince the medical community, the doctors, first and say look, we are building a credible pain clinic. Are you going to spin this off into a separate entity? No. But we will spin off our fine chemicals division into a subsidiary in a month or so. It's doing around Rs 8 crore a year. We recently signed an MoU with the US-based Austin Chemical Company Inc to form a joint venture Amrutanjan Pharmaessense Ltd. It's making losses currently, draining our OTC business valuations. Amrutanjan buys Siva Soft Drinks for Rs. 26 crore March 05, 2011 Amrutanjan Health Care has forayed into the beverage business by acquiring city-based Siva's Soft Drink Private Ltd. for Rs.26.20 crore. Siva's Soft Drink manufactures soft drink and fruit based beverages under the brand Fruitnik. Amrutanjan Health Care has entered into an agreement with Siva's Soft Drink Pvt. Ltd, Chennai, to acquire their soft drink and fruit based beverages business along with the brand Fruitnik' for a total consideration of Rs.26.20 crore, Amrutanjan said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Amrutanjan is a strong player in the health care industry. The company offers various products in pain management, cough and cold care, health and home care. It exports some products to East Asia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Amrutanjan, Austin Chemicals form joint venture January 20, 2011 Amrutanjan and Austin Chemicals of the U.S. have signed a memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture, Amrutanjan Pharmaessense Ltd, for strenthening chemical business, says a release. Pharmaessense currently has lab facilities to house 55 scientists.

2010
Amrutanjan board nod for restructuring July 15, 2010 Amrutanjan Health Care on Wednesday said its board had approved the restructuring of its over-thecounter and pharma businesses. It has recommended a final dividend of Rs.10 per share for 2009-10.

2008
Amrutanjan sells property to LIC July 9, 2008 CHENNAI: Amrutanjan Health Care (formerly Amrutanjan) has informed BSE that it had sold the lands and buildings situated at Egattur near Chengalpattu (Tamil Nadu) to Life Insurance Corporation of India for a total consideration of Rs. 110 crore. The company is engaged in the manufacture of ayurvedic and allopathic products ranging from pain balms of various strengths to revitalisers.

2007
Amrutanjan becomes Amrutanjan Health November 13, 2007 CHENNAI: The name of Amrutanjan Ltd. has been changed to Amrutanjan Health Care Ltd. Effective from Novermber 5, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange. Amrutanjan adding olive oil, home insecticides to portfolio November 6, 2007 Will retain focus on pain management product categories. Plans to import olive oil from Greece, sell it under its brand name. To import & market US-based Orange Guards insecticide brand of same name. Archana Venkat Chennai, Nov. 5 Amrutanjan Ltd, manufacturer of over-the-counter healthcare products, plans to acquire a few brands in the next one year to grow vertically in the pain management category of products. According to Mr K.N. Srikanta, Vice-President (Business Development), Amrutanjan, the company would spend about Rs 20 crore for these acquisitions and look at brands in India and overseas. But he did not divulge the names of brands being considered. About 80 per cent of Amrutanjans revenues come from sale of its standard yellow balm and the Amrutanjan Strong balm. The company would like to change this by diversifying its product portfolio, Mr Srikanta told Business Line.

New line-up It is planning to launch two new products olive oil under the brand name Cutis and organic home insecticides in a couple of months. The company will import olive oil from Greece and sell it under its brand name. The olive oil market in India, estimated at about Rs 200 crore, is growing at 18 per cent annually. We would like to take 10 per cent market share in two years time, Mr Srikanta said. Besides retail users, olive oil would also be sold to hotels and other bulk users, he said. Amrutanjan has entered into an agreement with the US-based Orange Guard, to import and market its insecticide brand of the same name in India. This water-based organic insecticide is non-toxic and can be sprayed in the vicinity of food and pets, unlike normal pest repellent sprays, Mr Srikanta said. The companys annual report mentions plans to foray into products such as mosquito repellent cream, back ache gel, hand sanitiser, energy capsules, hot and cold multipurpose gels for arthritis and muscular pains, and anti-stress formulations.

We will retain focus on the pain management category and have plans to strengthen distribution in northern India, Mr Srikanta said.

Retail chain

The company has tie-ups with about 1,800 distributors and 4.5 lakh retailers, most of them in South, West and East India. It recently launched a joint ache cream promoted by television personality Smriti Irani. The company will spend about Rs 12 crore on brand building this year, of which Rs 5 crore (equal to last years budget) has been already spent. Besides promoting its product portfolio in India, the company will also start local marketing activities in South Asia, Africa and Gulf countries. Amrutanjans export revenues are about Rs 2 crore. Its revenue grew 22.2 per cent to Rs 26.91 for the quarter ending September 2007 as compared to the same quarter last year. Net profit was up 7 per cent at Rs 3.03 crore.

2006
Ramco bags Amrutanjan order Chennai, June 27, 2006 Ramco Systems Ltd, a Chennai-based software company, will implement its process production suite of Ramco Enterprise Applications for Amrutanjan Ltd, a public limited healthcare company dealing with ayurvedic and allopathic range of products. The software application suite comprises functions that include financials, logistics, sales, production, quality modules and tools, and utilities. The implementation will streamline operations by integrating Amrutanjan's factories in Hyderabad and Chennai with its branch offices, and custom and forward agents. The implementation will help Amrutanjan eliminate manual process and data redundancy, enable accurate and timely preparation of management information system reports, streamline processes and functions across locations, thereby resulting in informed business decision-making, a Ramco press release said.

2005
Amrutanjan MD passes away Chennai, Aug 4, 2005 MR S. Radhakrishna, Managing Director, Amrutanjan Ltd, passed away this morning. He was 72 years old. A postgraduate in Chemistry, Mr Radhakrishna joined Amrutanjan in the mid-1950s and has been guiding the company for the past five decades. He was the grandson of the social reformer, journalist and freedom fighter Nageswararao Panthulu Garu, who founded Amrutanjan in 1893. Amrutanjan was incorporated as a public limited company in 1936 and is in the healthcare business with manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical products. Its core strength lies in the pain-relieving category with the yellow pain balm Amrutanjan being a household name for over 100 years.

In recent times, the company has diversified into fine chemicals, information technology and biotechnology.