Goodricke Group Ltd with tea gardens in Darjeeling, Dooars (West Bengal) and Assam, ended the year with marginally lower profit of Rs 31.7 crores against Rs 33.1 crore a year ago, even as it maintained its fourth quarter loss at Rs 55.1 crores against Rs 55.2 crores a year ago.
Company managing director Atul Asthana said ``Performance was good despite the prolonged closure in the Darjeeling region last year – volume-wise a record crop was reaped in Dooars which helped maintain the overall crop at around 18.7 million kgs. Assam crop too was good,” he said. This crop was marginally higher than 2016-17, the company said in regulatory filing. The fourth quarter loss was attributed to lack of production during the winter months.
Goodricke buys around 5 million kgs from bought leaf factories (BLF) ,taking its annual crop to 23.5 million kgs. It has four gardens in Darjeeling which produces some of the world’s best known brands and a Rs 10 crore loss was suffered due to last year’s closure due to the separatist agitation launched by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha it was learnt.
A 45 % dividend was recommended by the board, which also appointed Atul Asthana as the managing director from April 1, 2018 following the retirement of Arun Narain singh , who was appointed as a non-executive vice-chairman. Arjun Sengupta was appointed as CFO .
