Praj Ind jumps 11%, hits new high on robust Q4 nos; stock up 100% in 3 mths

Shares of Praj Industries hit a new high of Rs 276.80, as they rallied 11 per cent on the BSE in intra-day trade on Friday after the company's consolidated net profit more than doubled to Rs 52 crore for the quarter ended March 2021 (Q4FY21), on the back of higher operating income. The company had reported a profit of Rs 24.86 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Praj Industries is a globally leading engineering company with a bouquet of sustainable solutions for bioenergy, compressed biogas, critical process equipment and skids, breweries, industrial wastewater treatment and high purity water.

The company’s income from operations during the quarter under review jumped by 91 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 567 crore from Rs 296 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margins improved by 233 basis points (bps) to 13.21 per cent from 10.88 per cent in Q4FY20.

The company said order intake during the quarter stood at Rs 650 crore. The consolidated order backlog as of March 31, 2021, was at Rs 1,748 crore (FY20 order backlog at Rs 1,083 crore), which comprised 85 per cent domestic orders and 15 per cent international orders, it said.

The management said the activity levels have remained positively elevated with continued traction in enquiries across several business verticals, including some significant order wins.

Praj Industries bagged a prestigious breakthrough order from Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) during the quarter for setting up the CBG project at Badaun in Uttar Pradesh. The company also won an order from Godavari Biorefineries to set up India's largest capacity syrup-based ethanol plant in Karnataka.

On the domestic Bioenergy front, ethanol blending with petrol at an all-India level has reached more than 7.4 per cent in the first five months of the ethanol supply year 2020-21. This is the highest-ever recorded ethanol blending level at an all-India basis, the company said.  The government, in order to extend renewables usage across the nation, recently allowed the direct sale of ethanol as a fuel for compatible automobiles. Like petrol and diesel, the Center has allowed the sale of E-100 directly to compatible vehicles, it said.

At 10:10 am, the stock was trading 10 per cent higher at Rs 273 on the BSE, as compared to a 0.86 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. In the past three months, it has zoomed 103 per cent as against a 2.7 per cent decline in the benchmark index.