Aarti Drugs will be able to surpass the guidance of 80-90 percent growth, said the pharma company’s chief financial officer Adhish Patil on Wednesday. The company has reported a strong performance on the margins front in the third quarter results although there is a slowdown in revenue growth.

Speaking with CNBC-TV18 post-Q3 results, Patil said, “The year ended December, we have already covered 90 percent of last year’s revenue. As far as profit after tax (PAT) is concerned, we are already 160 percent up. We had given a guidance of around 80-90 percent growth of PAT over last year which we feel we should be able to surpass – more than 90 percent growth over FY19-20 will be there.”

Patil also said that Q3 historically is a lean quarter for the company and expects Q4 to be much better as compared to Q3.

“Q3 has been historically lean quarter for us. Q1, Q2 and Q4 are good quarters for us. Year-on-year (YoY) there is 12 percent growth which is quite good as per expectations. So, we are not that worried about demand as such right now. For the full year, Q4 will be a lot better than Q3 as per historical trend also,” he said.

On capex, Patil said that irrespective of the China Plus One strategy, the company will be undertaking Greenfield and Brownfield capex. However, he said that the Greenfield capex will take time. He expects the Brownfield capex to come in by next fiscal.

On the margins, he said that they should be able to achieve 19-20 percent EBITDA margin.

“Getting better is a little difficult with the current product line. But maybe after the Greenfield capex things might look different. Pricing had come down in the middle of the September quarter, but since then till now the pricing is stable. Earlier we thought that EBITDA margins will go to the tune of 18 percent or so on a long-term basis, but still, we are seeing a very stable business case where we are able to achieve this 20 percent EBITDA margin. So, it is looking quite stable as of now,” he said.

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(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)