ACC Q4 profit dips 1.8% as rising costs offset strong sales growth

Its sales volumes rose 14% on-year, above the 5%-12% range estimated by at least three brokerages, and lifted overall revenue by 12% to 59.49 billion rupees

Indian cement maker ACC reported a marginally lower fourth-quarter profit on Thursday as higher expenses outweighed rising sales volumes in a seasonally strong quarter.

The Adani group firm reported a 1.8 per cent fall year-on-year in profit after tax to 7.35 billion rupees ($86.1 million) for the January to March quarter.

Its sales volumes rose 14 per cent on-year, above the 5 per cent-12 per cent range estimated by at least three brokerages, and lifted overall revenue by 12 per cent to 59.49 billion rupees.

However, total expenses, the bulk of which is raw material costs, rose 12.7 per cent for the quarter.

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KEY CONTEXT

The fourth quarter is typically strong for cement companies as they ramp up sales to meet fiscal year-end targets.

While cement prices continued to recover during the reported period, on an average, they were still about 2 per cent lower from a year earlier, data from brokerage Ambit Capital showed.

Cost control measures largely helped peer Dalmia Bharat report a higher fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, offsetting the hit from soft prices and lower volumes.

Sector leader UltraTech Cement is slated to report its earnings next week.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next 12 months) Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

months)

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div

growth ( per cent) growth rating* analyst price yield

( per cent) s target** ( per cent)

ACC Ltd 19.43 9.98 9.32 27.98 Buy 19 0.89 0.37

Ambuja Cements 33.43 16.35 19.83 16.67 Buy 33 0.93 0.35

Shree Cement 58.74 21.28 16.07 68.58 Hold 17 1.09 0.35

UltraTech Cement 37.61 20.46 17.93 42.59 Buy 35 0.96 0.59

* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** The ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

JANUARY-MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 85.3400 Indian rupees

 

(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)