 "Shree Cement: Rising costs take the sheen off Q4 show")
Higher costs dented the performance of Shree Cement in the March quarter (Q4). The surge in fuel and transportation costs resulted in standalone operating profit coming in at Rs 511 crore, lower than the Bloomberg consensus estimates of Rs 558 crore.
While Street expectations weren’t high, given soft cement prices and power realisations, the performance did not match even the muted estimates. Merchant power demand has not been encouraging, leading to tariffs declining sharply. The power segment, which posted losses at the operating level in the December quarter, reported an operating profit of Rs 26 crore in Q4, and this
