Varadharajan, I will have to look in detail about their raw material cost compared to CaeserStone, I remember reading CaesarStones AR and finding that most of their raw material comes from Turkey?? May be a tiny bit from India. I am equally curious how much is the raw material cost for Quantra and whats the contract with supplier. It makes me nervous that they claim to have only one supplier, I am interested to know the kind of contract they have with Chettinad. More later on this.
You raised another interesting question, why sales grew only beginning 2014? I have learnt that setting up a quart stone making facility 2 years. And then, I feel they had very marginal sales from Quantra and I think it took time to convince the dealers that its quality is on par and still economical. I have spoken to all of their dealers here, Bedrosians , Daltile and IMG. All of them said as long as its Bretton made the quality is on par with CaesarStone and likes. I think Daltile started selling Quantra only recently. Bedrosians confirmed me they will sell only Quantra Quartz stone and no other brand. I thought that was very positive considering (as Bedrosians employee claimed) they are top 2nd or 3rd slab dealer in USA. I would encourage you to call the dealers, so that we learn more and more. And lets continue questioning and we should try and talk to management.

Thanks-Mahesh

Well, you guys need to be aware of the latest developments. Mgmt has indicated to a few analysts that even second qtr is panning out to be like first one. The corrective steps will have positive impact only third qtr onwards. I have different take on Page's performance. Page's ability to take price hikes is dented like Hawkins since inflation is in negative. Large part of Page's earnings have come from annual price hikes along with volume expansion of 15-20%. Volume expansion has declined to below 15% which is quite good in this slow growth environment. PPI deflation is getting difficult to handle. If the earning growth is just 20%, real growth is 25% (20%-(-5%)) where PPI is -5% from previously real growth of 33%-8%=25% when 8% was inflation and high earning growth. But our mind is wired to look at nominal growth.

To me it looks like more than a bull market correction and it could be a process to de-rate Page. Mr. Market has its own mind and interesting things do happen.

Disc: Invested with the largest % holding

I don't understand what is the issue here. They have mentioned that accounting rules provide exemptions to publish full financials of subsidiaries.

Company issued FCCB in USD to fund quartz capex which was supposed to bring USD revenue. The mistake they did was that it was not hedged leading to almost default like scenario. It takes sometime to build a biz. You can't start selling a product is US by opening a shop.Customer qualification, brand building etc takes time and then comes inflection time.

Quartz mines are not owned but it is not critical since it is widely available material on this earth. It is almost like lifting dirt from earth.

Granite mines are owned but not fully utilised and they buy from other mine owners too on which they don't need to pay royalty.

One should know that granite and quartz are minor minerals where it is the state which gives mining license and royalty is generally very low.

Why it is important to know "when" they got mining license. They are more than twenty old yr company and granite is their main business till few yrs ago.

in valueresearch SKM has 3 times the profit of tasty bites,better margin,ROE and PE

this year SKM has already run a lot , but can these two be compared and more growth be expected in SKM

right. in the past, it used to fall by about 10% from peak. now by 25%. but i feel it shouldn't have gone to 17k in first place. thats why the fall looks steep. for long term investors with buy and hold strategy, these kind of things can create a lot of confusion.