(Reuters) -Indian drugmaker Alembic Pharmaceuticals reported a 12% fall in fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, hurt by a deferred tax expense that offset the impact of strong sales in its key U.S. and domestic markets.
The company’s consolidated profit fell to 1.57 billion rupees (nearly $19 million) in the quarter ended March 31, from 1.78 billion rupees a year ago.
It recorded a deferred tax expense of 146.7 million rupees compared with a tax gain of 217.5 million rupees a year earlier. Its profit before tax climbed 5%.
Alembic Pharma’s sales in the U.S. climbed 20%, while sales in India rose 8%.
This drove its overall revenue 17% higher to 17.70 billion rupees.
KEY CONTEXT
A large chunk of revenues for most Indian generic drugmakers comes from the U.S.
While fierce competition in North America’s generic drugs market has been weighing on some firms’ margins, generic drugmakers are also under threat from U.S. President Donald Trump tariff plans for the sector.
PEER COMPARISON
Estimates Analysts’ sentiment
(next 12
months)
RIC PE EV/EBI Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div
TDA growth (%) growth (%) rating analyst price yield
* s target** (%)
Alembic 23.80 14.75 11.24 34.59 Hold 8 0.85 1.21
Pharmaceuticals
Dr Reddy’s 16.41 10.61 8.98 6.82 Hold 34 0.88 0.68
Laboratories
Cipla 24.11 15.33 8.56 3.96 Buy 32 0.95 0.84
Zydus Lifesciences 19.38 13.19 6.06 -1.30 Hold 27 0.86 0.34
* The mean of analysts’ 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 TO MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 84.3825 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
