)
Sesa Sterlite, a Vedanta group company, reported lower-than-expected consolidated net profit of Rs 375 crore for the June 2014 quarter, as the depreciation accounting charges of its oil and gas subsidiary Cairn India ate into its bottom line. The company's consolidated net sales, on the other hand, were a tad down from the estimates at Rs 17,186 crore in the quarter under review.
Bloomberg had estimated a consolidated bottom line of Rs 1,235 crore for the June quarter and a top line of Rs 17,209 crore. After the Sesa Goa-Sterlite Industries merger as well as the Vedanta Group consolidation was completed in August 2013, the performance of the June quarter on a year-on-year basis is not comparable.
Excluding the exceptional item, the company's bottom line stood at Rs 1,341 crore for the period under review, up 8.5 per cent from estimates.
The positive impact of the company's other income was largely nullified by the exceptional item loss that Sesa reported in the June quarter. The company reported an exceptional item of Rs 1,627 crore in the quarter, representing the retrospective effect of the 'depreciation accounting' change made by Cairn India to comply with the guidance issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
The company's other income stood at Rs 1,139 crore. This was up sequentially mainly because of higher maturities of investments in fixed maturity plans at Hindustan Zinc and Cairn India. The company also incurred a forex gain of Rs 141 crore in this quarter, mainly at Cairn India driven by their dollar denominated investments and trade debtors, Sesa said in a statement.
On the top line front, the company's oil & gas and copper segments were the largest contributors to the total consolidated revenue stream. Oil & gas garnered a revenue of Rs 4,482 crore in the June quarter, while the copper business reported Rs 4,853 crore of revenues. However, almost all segments saw a decline in revenues (except iron ore and power) compared to the March quarter. Ditto with profits. Except for aluminium that saw profits inch up marginally (up 1.5 per cent to Rs 254 crore) and power, which turned around reporting a profit of Rs 189 crore versus a loss of Rs 94.4 crore, all other segments reported a profit decline.
