Forex gains and Vedanta Aluminium Ltd’s lower losses has helped Sterlite Industries to post a net profit of Rs 1,743 crore, in the second quarter ended September 30, 2012, up by 75% from Rs 998 crore in the same period last year.
The boost in net profit was helped by the forex gain of Rs 219 crore due to the appreciation of the rupee from Rs 56.30 to a dollar as on June 30 to Rs 52.70 at the end of the second quarter. Improved performance and lower forex losses at Vedanta Aluminium helped Sterlite to cap its Loss of Associate to Rs 61 crore as compared to Rs 243 crore in the second quarter of last year.
The net sales for the given quarter rose by just 9%, to Rs 11,029 crore. Sterlite said that strong production and sales volumes of silver, lead and copper and commercial power sales from Sterlite Energy Ltd helped the company to post higher revenues. Depreciating rupee helped the company to largely offset falling metal rates at the the London Metal Exchange (LME).
Pure earnings or EBITDA for the second quarter was flat at Rs 2,538 crore as against Rs 2,551 crore in the same period last year. The interest costs dropped by 25% to Rs 178 crore in the quarter. The company said that this was possible primarily due to rupee appreciation in the quarter, which resulted into lower foreign exchange loss being transferred to interest cost.
Sesa Goa and Sterlite Industries, the two Vedanta Group companies are being merged into one entity - Sesa-Sterlite. Sterlite said that the process is on track and the two should be able to achieve the merger by December 31, 2012.
The cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter were at Rs 23,334 crore.
