(Reuters) -India’s Shree Cement topped first-quarter profit expectations on Monday, helped by fuel-led expense control measures.
Shree’s net profit nearly doubled to 6.19 billion rupees ($70.7 million) in the three months ended June 30. Analysts, on average, had expected 5.43 billion rupees, data from LSEG showed.
Operating revenue rose 2.3% to 49.48 billion rupees, but missed analysts’ average estimate of 51.71 billion rupees. Total costs fell nearly 7%, led by an 18% decline in power and fuel expenses that is nearly one-fourth of total expense.
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KEY CONTEXT
The April-June period in India is seasonally weak for cement makers as the summer heat and monsoon rains slow construction and dent demand.
Shree Cement’s quarterly sales volumes fell to 9 million tonnes from 9.6 million tonnes a year ago. The 6.3% drop was bigger than the 2%-4% expected decline range, according to projections from at least 4 brokerages.
But cement prices rose about 2% on-year on average in the quarter, according to brokerage Ambit Capital, extending the steady recovery so far this year after last year’s slump. That helped cushion the hit from volumes.
Higher prices also helped rivals UltraTech Cement beat first-quarter earnings expectations and also boosted profits at Ambuja Cements.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 months) Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
months)
RIC PE EV/EBITDA Price/Sales Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div yield
growth (%) growth (%) rating* analysts price (%)
target**
Shree Cement 54.54 19.64 5.23 10.64 39.70 Hold 19 1.01 0.36
UltraTech 36.19 19.57 3.79 14.59 42.73 Buy 37 0.90 0.64
Cement
Ambuja 34.75 16.70 3.22 22.60 5.51 Buy 35 0.94 0.33
Cements
Dalmia 31.26 12.06 2.55 10.81 41.18 Hold 33 0.95 0.41
Bharat
* The mean of analyst 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
APRIL-JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 87.6210 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)
