Ghandhara Nissan Limited (GHNL) was incorporated in 1981 as a private limited firm. The company has a Technical Assistance Agreement with Nissan Motor Company, Japan, and a Joint-Venture Agreement with Nissan Diesel Company, Japan, for assembly of cars, light commercial vehicles (LCVs), and heavy duty vehicles. The company was converted into a public company in 1992 under the umbrella of Bibojee Group of Companies.
In 2013, Ghandhara Nissan Limited created a wholly owned subsidiary known as the Ghandhara Dongfeng Pvt Ltd to conduct the CKD operation of Dongfeng vehicles from China. The subsidiary, which has the equity investment of Rs59.99 million, initially imported the Dongfeng vehicles from China to test the waters.
However, according to the market reports the company has started its operations to assemble the full range of Dongfeng vehicles, and it seems the firm has started to feel the momentum on its sale. The higher demand for light and heavy commercial vehicles is the primary reason for this impetus. According to the market sources, the short supply of Hyundai Shezore is helping the GHNL to fill the gap. GNHL has its assembly plant situated at Port Qasim, which can manufacture 6,000 vehicles. Ever since it discontinued the production of Nissan Sunny, it has relied on other variants to meet the fixed cost.
Performance at PSX and Stock holding
In wake of Ghandhara's super ride in recent years, GHNL shares have had a dream run. The stock has heavily outperformed the market in each of the past four years boasting triple-digit gains. It traded at under Rs10 apiece for most of 2013 and is currently worth around Rs158 apiece. At this time over 18 percent of the stocks are being held by the general public at large. The associated companies, the government fund NIT, mutual funds and Modaraba hold the rest.
Financial Performance
Ghandhara Nissan Limited after showing lacklustre performance for six years came back into the game during FY13, but things actually started to pick up in FY14. The primary issue in the past was the burden of high manufacturing and selling costs in the company, which has kept the margins under pressure. Finally, in FY13 the improvement in demand helped the production of trucks that resulted in the sustained increase in net sales. The company sold 226 units of UD Trucks and 9 Dongfeng vehicles in commercial market for the first time. GHNL also produced and supplied 1568 units under its contract assembly.