Voltas Limited has rallied 8% at Rs 97.50 in morning trades after reporting a better-than-expected 3% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in consolidated net profit after minority interest at Rs 104 crore for the quarter ended March 2012, due to lower incidence of tax. Analysts on average had expected net profit at Rs 74 crore from Tata Group firm. The consolidated sales, however, decline 6% at Rs 1,573 crore on y-o-y basis.
Meanwhile, the board of directors of the company has recommended dividend of Rs 1.60 per share on face value of Re 1 per share (160%) for the year 2011-12.
The stock opened at Rs 91 and hit a high of 99.20 on the National Stock Exchange. As many as a combined 3.35 million shares have already changed hands on the counter in morning deals, against an average 2.5 million shares that were traded daily in past two weeks on the NSE and BSE.