The Great Eastern Shipping (GE Shipping) seems to be on a roll. The company has achieved its highest-ever quarterly sales and net profit in the first quarter ended June 2001.
Net profit at Rs 61.70 crore is the best-ever achieved in the last 17 quarters, while income from operations at Rs 338.08 crore is the record in as many quarters.
The company attributed the record performance to continuously rising global demand for oil which in turn has multiplier effect on oil tanker demand.
Despite the sterling performance during the year ended March 2001 and in the first quarter of the current year, the company's shares has been traded at a price-earning (P-E) multiple of 3.3 times.
For the first quarter, the annualised earning per share works out at Rs 11.20. On the basis of the current annualised earning, the current market price of Rs 27.45 discounts current earnings by only 2.45 times.
If one considers an annualised cash earning of Rs 20, the stock is available at 1.37 times of cash earning. The price to book value for GE Shipping stock is available at a lowly 0.54 times.
The company has thus far reported profit growth in five out of 13 quarters, of which, three of them in a row in the last three quarters.
Though growth in profit slackened at 27.16 per cent in the first quarter of 2001-02, the profit came from core operations as other income accounted for only 7.70 per cent of the profit earned.
The company reported its highest-ever growth (in percentage terms) in net profit at 206.51 per cent in the quarter ended June 2000 on account of a huge 50.70 per cent contribution from other income.
The second best rise in net profit was achieved during the quarter ended December 2000, when other income contributed 28.48 per cent.
During the fourth quarter ending March 2001, the net profit grew by 69.11 per cent where other income contributed 42.57 per cent.
GE Shipping, however, achieved the highest-ever growth in revenue of 46.15 per cent during the quarter ended June 2001.
The second best revenue growth was achieved in fourth quarter of 2000-01 at 29.94 per cent, while the third best rise in revenue at 25.65 per cent was achieved in the third quarter of 1999-00.
