 "ACC net up 80% at Rs 240 crore")
Impacted by weak demand and lower realisations, the company's net sales were down 3.1 per cent to Rs 2,870 crore against Rs 2,961 crore last year. The Bloomberg consensus estimates had pegged net sales at Rs 3,051 crore for the 30-million tonne company.
The stock of ACC slipped 0.32 per cent to Rs 1672.75. It had made a 52-week high of Rs 1,716 during the intra-day session on July 21 after the company announced commercial production from its new clinker facility at Jamul.
The company sold 6.12 million tonnes of cement during the quarter, a fall of 1.3 per cent year-on-year. The corresponding quarter last year saw ACC selling 6.2 million tonnes of cement.
“Cement volumes declined marginally during the April-June 2016 mainly due to muted demand in some markets. Realisation was lower by three per cent,” ACC said in a statement to stock exchanges.
However, in the ready mixed concrete business - largely concentrated in major cities, ACC did better as its sales volume in the segment grew 9.3 per cent to 0.64 million cubic metres against 0.58 million cubic metres last year in the same quarter. The company said it benefited from the higher offtake of infrastructure and large housing projects in major metropolitan cities.
On the cost front, it managed to bring its overall expenditure down by nine per cent on the back of continuous optimisation of fuel mix through higher usage of petcoke, lower cost of input materials - slag, fly ash and gypsum. Further, measures taken by the company to reduce lead distances and road freight also helped in overall cost reduction in logistics.
Thus, with 13 per cent decline in power costs per tonne to Rs 853 and 10 per cent fall in freight costs per tonne to Rs 1,068, margins got a boost. The blended Ebitda per tonne improved 39 per cent year-on-year to Rs 746.
ACC follows calendar year for its financial accounting and the June 2016 quarter is, therefore, its second quarter.
The company, which is known for its dividend-driven nature, approved an interim dividend of Rs 11 per share.
In its outlook, ACC said that its focus would remain on reducing costs. “Prospects of a good monsoon, coupled with the impetus from the government’s thrust on infrastructure development, housing and other mega projects are also factors that are expected to have a positive impact on the overall momentum of construction activity in the coming quarters.”