(Reuters) -Bayer CropScience posted a 12% rise in second-quarter profit on Friday, as keeping a tight lid on costs helped the agricultural chemicals maker navigate a drop in demand for its crop protection products, exacerbated by heavy monsoons showers.
The Indian unit of German drugs and pesticides maker Bayer AG posted a profit of 1.53 billion rupees ($17.4 million) for the three months ended September 30, compared with 1.36 billion rupees a year earlier.
Input costs dropped 33%, taking total expenses 13% lower on-year, balancing out a 10.63% slide in revenue.
For further results highlights, click here.
KEY CONTEXT
Persistent rainfall in India, particularly the 115% above-normal showers in September, led to a significant drop in agrochemical demand.
Peer Coromandel International reported a roughly 20% rise in its quarterly profit-after-tax last week, driven by strong sales growth in global markets.Bayer Cropscience said that the growth in its bottomline was driven by a favourable sales mix and disciplined cost management.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
months) months)
RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div
growth (%) growth (%) rating* analyst price yield
s target** (%)
Bayer Cropscience 27.04 19.57 11.64 21.24 Hold 8 0.82 2.58
Coromandel 24.14 15.81 12.85 29.05 Buy 10 0.83 0.55
International
UPL 17.69 8.09 7.47 58.62 Buy 18 1.00 0.82
Rallis India 21.55 11.29 10.21 36.16 Hold 13 0.92 0.96
* Mean of analysts’ ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** 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 = 87.8950 rupees
(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das, Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar)
