McDowell saw solid buying interest on Friday as the company's profits jumped an awesome 245% supported by the company's concerted brand building exercise.

By 10:55 IST, in fact, the scrip of the brewery spurted 7.13% to Rs 38.30 on volumes of 20,228 shares on BSE.

Just before commencement of trading Friday, McDowell said Q4 ending 31 March 2003 net profit leaped up 245% to Rs 7.31 crore on a 12% increase in total income to Rs 243.175 crore (Rs 2.43 billion). For the full year, the company registered a 33.7% increase in net profit to Rs 21.09 crore on an 11.5% growth in total income to Rs 999.56 crore (Rs 9.99 billion).

The company has attributed the sterling performance to its significant brand building initiative coupled with continued and aggressive market positioning. The company, in fact, undertook a sharp increase in advertisement and sales promotion expenditure during the period. Consequently, the market share of the company's brands has increased to 26% - an increase of 2%.

The year also saw the company making major strides in the IT arena, becoming the first major beverage alcohol manufacturer in the country to implement the enterprise resource planning software system SAP-R/3. All the 12 distilleries of the company across the country were certified as ISO 9001 compliant during the year.

As on 31 March 2003, the promoters held 42.47% stake in the company, while the public and institutions held 40.98% and 8.58%, respectively.

BSE code: 500273