(Reuters) -India Cements reported a narrower second-quarter loss on Friday, supported by improved pricing and demand from a year ago, when general elections had dampened construction activity across the country.
The company, owned by UltraTech Cements, said its net loss narrowed to 68.8 million rupees ($781,507.36) in the July-September quarter, from a loss of 3.39 billion rupees a year ago.
Revenue grew by 11% to 11.17 billion rupees for the quarter.
For further earnings highlights, (click here)
Domestic sales volumes for the cement maker rose about 12% sequentially in the September quarter from the previous one.
Cement demand is expected to rebound in the second half of the year, as festive season winds down and recent consumption tax cuts support consumer sentiment, analysts said.
Shares of India Cements have risen 1.5% since September 3, when the GST cuts were officially announced.
UltraTech Cements is yet to report its earnings.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 Estimates Analysts
months) (next 12 ‘
months) sentimen
t
RIC PE EV/EBI Price/ Revenue profit Mean No. of Stock to Div
TDA Sales growth(%) growth(% rating* analyst price yield
) s target** (%)
India Cements Ltd ICMN.NS 61.17 17.40 NULL 14.24 NULL SELL 2 1.14 NULL
Orient Cement Ltd ORCE.NS 15.22 7.66 NULL 12.55 54.09 SELL 2 0.82 0.23
Dalmia Bharat Ltd DALB.NS 29.71 11.79 2.58 10.58 31.73 HOLD 33 0.94 0.41
Ramco Cements TRCE.NS 36.43 14.16 NULL 11.45 106.30 HOLD 21 0.99 0.20
Limited
* 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
JULY-SEPTEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
($1 = 88.0350 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Komal Salecha; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Sahal Muhammed)
