M&M Q4 profit beats estimates on one-time gain

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, India's biggest sports utility vehicle (SUV) manufacturer, posted a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit as strong tractor sales offset declining sales of its utility vehicles, and also helped by one-off gains.

Mahindra's net profit for the January-March quarter rose marginally to 8.97 billion rupees ($152 million) compared with 8.89 billion rupees a year earlier. Net sales rose about 4.7 percent to 108.38 billion rupees.

Analysts on average had expected the company to post a profit of 8.12 billion rupees, according to data from Thomson Reuters StarMine.

(Reporting by Aditi Shah; Editing by Anand Basu)