At the annual general meeting held at Jalgaon, the Founder Chairman Shri B.H. Jain, declared that the Company wished to increase its focus towards meeting Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. It is worth remembering that Jain Irrigation was perhaps the first corporate entity to alter its Articles in 2006 to provide for 3% of profits every year for rural development out of its profits. He also emphasized on improving returns to all stakeholders of the Company including to the Society.

The Shareholders approved the 20% dividend recommended by the Directors at the 20th AGM. The Dividend cash outflow would be Rs.155 mn as against Rs. 119.76 mn last year an increase of 30% in absolute terms, while maintaining the payout to approx 10% of the profits available for appropriation. This is in addition to the Rs.42 mn paid out as preference dividend and dividend tax thereon.

Mr. Anil Jain, Managing Director while addressing the shareholders in the Annual General Meeting at Jalgaon, said that Company will grow from about Rs 1,220 crore in FY 2006-07 to about Rs 2,200 crore in FY 2007-08. Overall, topline growth would be about 70% for the current year on a consolidated basis.

He further said that out of aggregate value creation of $150 bn in the Indian agriculture every year, the Company is expected to reach in next 2-3 years $1 bn revenue mark dealing in water conservation, water distribution, agri produce processing and exports of plastic sheets etc. He said that it has taken 40 years for the organization to scale the revenue in excess of Rs.10 bn last year but next Rs.10 bn will be possible to achieve in the current year itself.

He added that the Company was marching towards its stated objective of being among the first three entities on a global scale in each of the business areas it operates namely, Micro and Sprinkler irrigation, plastic sheets, vegetable dehydration and fruit processing with the help of organic and inorganic growth achieved in the last two years and planned over the next 3 years. Company is already second largest drip irrigation company in the world and third largest onion dehydration company in the world.

The Official business of the meeting included regular items like accounts (FY 2006-07) adoption, Dividend on Preference and Equity Shares, reappointment of Directors (Mr. A.R. Barwe and Mr. R.B. Jain) and reappointment of Statutory Auditors M/s Dalal and Shah, Chartered Accountants, Mumbai. The meeting considered and approved the two special items of business namely approval for mortgage/charging of properties of Company in favour of lenders and the delegation of authority to borrow beyond the Paid Up Capital and Reserves to the Board of Directors of the Company.

The Board of Directors of the Company had recently approved an additional issue of about 86 lakh new Equity Warrants to the Promoter entities, which could mean an additional fund inflow of little over Rs. 400 crore into the Company over the next 18 months or so. These funds would help the Company deleverage its balance sheet. The total debt to equity of the Company today is about 2.7 and long-term debt to equity is about 1.5. Post this capital infusion and additional cash flow generated by the Company by 2009, the long-term debt to equity ratio is likely to come down to 0.3. This would at that point in time allow the Company to have a balance sheet which can be used to go to the next level in terms of possible larger acquisitions in the water and agriculture space.