BENGALURU: The board of directors of the Essel group’s education company Zee Learn Limited (ZLL) have declared a first time ever dividend of 5 percent per equity share of Re 1 each for the quarter ended 30 September 2016 (Q2-17, current quarter). The dividend of just 5 paise (Rs 0.05) albeit small, could be precursor of better returns, given the fact that the company’s profit after tax (PAT) for the current quarter is more than seven-fold (7.05 times) year-over-year (y-o-y), with operating EBIDTA margins almost doubling y-o-y from 18.2 percent in Q2-16 to 34.9 percent in Q2-17.
ZLL CEO Debshankar Mukhopadyay said, “We are pleased to announce an interim dividend for the first time at Zee Learn Limited. This shows our commitment to the shareholders who beleived in us and continued to invest in the comoany. Q2 and H1-17 are remarkable for us and our strategy to focus on our strenghts has resulted in delivering profits which are multiple times more than profits delivered during the last financial year.”
ZLL reported PAT of Rs 7.59 crore (22.6 percent margin) for the current quarter versus PAT of Rs 1.08 crore (3.5 percent margin) in Q2-16. PAT in the immediate training quarter (Q1-17) was Rs 8.02 crore (19.1 percent margin). Operating EBIDTA in Q2-17 more than doubled (up 2.1 times) y-o-y to Rs 11.70 crore from Rs 5.57 crore, but was 9.8 percent lower q-o-q than Rs 12.97 crore (30.8 percent margin).
Other numbers
ZLL’s Total Income from Operations (TIO) in the current quarter increased 9.7 percent y-o-y to Rs 33.56 crore from Rs 30.60 crore in the correspondin year ago quarter, but declined 20.2 percent q-o-q from Rs 42.06 crore in Q1-17.
The company spent 14.5 percent less y-o-y towards purchase of Education goods and Television content in Q2-17 at Rs 4.91 crore (14.6 percent of TIO) as compared to Rs 5.74 crore (18.8 percent of TIO) and 45.1 percent lower q-o-q than the Rs 8.93 crore (21.2 percent of TIO).
Employees Benefit Expense in the current quarter declined 18.2 percent y-o-y to Rs 5.94 crore (17.7 percent of TIO) from Rs 7.25 crore (23.7 percent of TIO) and declined 14.5 percent q-o-q from Rs 6.94 crore (16.5 percent of TIO).
Selling and marketing expense in Q2-17 increased 18.2 percent y-o-y to Rs 3.98 crore (11.9 percent of TIO) from Rs 3.37 crore (11 percent of TIO), but declined 33 percent q-o-q from Rs 5.95 crore (14.1 percent of TIO).
Mukhopadyay added, “ZLL through its varied forays including Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), K-12 Education, Youth and Vocational Education is playing a strong and transformational role in India’s education system. I am confident that ZLL will continue to grow its business and is commited to create long-term value for its franchisees, parents and students, shareholders, employees and all stakeholders.”
Note:The unit of currency in this report is the Indian rupee - Rs (also conventionally represented by INR).The Indian numbering system or the Vedic numbering system has been used to denote money values. The basic conversion to the international norm would be:
(a) 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10,000,000 = 10 million = 1 crore.
(b) 10,000 lakh = 100 crore = 1 arab = 1 billion.
