Investment Ideas - Blue Dart Courier

This company was started in the year 1983 under the name Blue Dart Courier Service. The Company was promoted by Tushar Jani, Clyde Cooper and Khushroo Dubash. In the beginning it was a partnership venture. Later it became a public limited company on June 15th, 1994 and started functioning under the name Blue Dart Express Ltd.Blue Dart Express Ltd has become Asia's leading air express carrier and logistics-services provider.

The company has over 200 offices and 168 franchisees. In addition to this it has 173 service participants. The company operates from 6 warehouses and 9 hubs. It total it has built up 422000 sq. feet of facilities to cater to its customers. The Company has set up customs bonded warehouse at Chennai, Mumbai and Calcutta and trans-shipment facilities at all major domestic airports through which it operates. In addition to this the company has agreements with international carriers like, Air India, Air France, British Airways, Emirates, Singapore Airlines Swissair, South African Airways, Air Canada, Cargolux Lufthansa, China Airlines and FedEx for movement of air cargo.

The company’s domestics operations cover over 13800 locations. The company has a tie up with the US Company Federal Express International with exclusive rights for providing pick-up and delivery services in India. Federal Express is a well known brand name in over 220 countries.

The company has an agreement with Franch Express, a courier operator in South India. This arrangement helped the company to add another 1000 locations in the southern region. It also has an agreement in place with Crown Couriers, a courier company in North India whereby additional 74 locations were added to network in North India.

Blue dart has its unique tracking system known as COSMAT which is a satellite based communication system. All domestic shipments are tracked via this system. In addition to this there are other products too. Voice Dart, Power Dart, Dart Collect, Dart Apex are some of its products. 

The company has seven aircrafts (acquired on lease) for its operations serving 60 air routes

During 2004-05 DHL Express (Singapore) Pte Ltd acquired 81.03% equity stake of the company.

In the year 2005, Blue Dart Aviation Ltd ceased to be a subsidiary of the company. Subsequently, Skyline Air Logistics Ltd and Concorde Air Logistics Ltd became subsidiaries of the company.

Starting from 2005 the company added new regional head offices in the Northern region, and the Southern region. New facilities came up in the cities of Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmadabad, and Jaipur

In the year 2005-2006, the company divested 60,000 Equity Shares ( 100% of Equity Capital) of Skyline Air Logistics Ltd, for a sum of  Rs.4.42 million. Consequently, Skyline Air Logistics ceased to be a subsidiary of the Blue Dart. 

According to the available data, the total income of the company is 2206Cr. Total expenditure of the company is 1900Cr. The reported Profit after Tax is 189Cr. The EPS is at 79.5. the dividend history of the company is also very impressive. In 2011, it paid 10%, in 2012, it paid 20%. This year it has decided to pay 710% (Rs. 71 per share). The face value of the share is Rs.10.

This company has also found place in the following Mutual funds:

IDFC Premier Equity Fund - Plan A (G) (604,679 Shares)

SBI Magnum Tax Gain Scheme (D) (360,655 Shares)

SBI Contra Fund (G) (202,842 Shares)

The past performance of the company has been very  impressive. From 2009 the value of this share has increased 6 fold. At the time of writing this note its shares are trading at Rs. 2587.  Although traded in low volumes, this company’s shares could be  bought as an investment or for short term benefits.

Dis: I do not hold any shares or interests in this company.