Bartronics sets July date for spinning off ops in 4 units

Bartronics, the automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) and smart-card solutions major, is hopeful of completing its restructuring by June-July this year.

The company is spinning off four different entities from its existing operations into identification solutions, banking solutions, citizen services and overseas operations. In addition to bringing in focus into operations, the company is also hopeful of roping in investors into the new entities to further its expansion plans.

“There are several investors who are keen on investing in a specific operation. There are some investors who are keen on investing in retail-like operations and they would be interested in investing only in the citizen services subsidiary. Similarly, there are investors with specific interest in banking solutions. Not all are keen to risk their investments by investing in a consolidated entity,” Sudhir Rao, the company’s managing director, said.

Bartronics is currently engaged in appointing CEOs for each of the entities. “It would take about six months for putting in place the CEOs. However, the subsidiarisation would be done by June-July,” he said.

For the year ended March 2011, the company recorded sales of about Rs907 crore, a growth of about 11% over the previous year. Net profit for the year stood at about Rs118 crore, a growth of about 13% over the previous fiscal.

The company has an order book of about Rs975 crore, which includes Rs250 crore worth orders from smart card market and the balance for solutions.

The solutions’ order is executable in about 18 months.

In yet another major decision, the company has decided to scale down its investment for the much-hyped Aap Ke Dwar project being taken up in Delhi. The citizen services kiosks project was taken up with an outlay of Rs800 crore. However, with the procedural delays hitting the rollout, the investment on the project has now been pegged at Rs600 crore.

The company has so far commissioned works on about 300 kiosks out of the originally planned 1,200 kiosks. Of these about 150 are operational.

“There are certain issues in getting clearances from the authorities for the kiosks. Particularly after the CWG scam, the process of getting approvals has gone off track. We are hopeful of ironing out the issues in the next six months. By September 2011, we are hopeful of completing all the kiosks and start earning revenues from the project,” Rao said.

The company has about 20 projects on hand for financial inclusion solutions, which are encouraging it to take up expansion of its smart card facilities.

For the current fiscal, the company is aiming at a topline growth of about 20%. “Though we have not decided on any specific targets, we are hopeful of doing better than the last year,” he said.