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India’s largest cement maker UltraTech Cement’s net profit fell for 2013-14, the first time in five years. Rising input costs and sluggish sales hit the company in the year, though the March quarter saw the company report double-digit growth in net profit and volumes.
For FY14, the Aditya Birla Group company’s net profit dropped 19 per cent year-on-year to Rs 2,144 crore. Net sales were up 27 basis points to Rs 20,078 crore from Rs 20,023 crore in FY13.
The results were announced after market hours on Wednesday. On the BSE, the UltraTech stock closed at Rs 2,170.5, down 1.4 per cent. The Sensex rose 118 points.
“The year witnessed continuing pressure on input and logistics costs, given the increase in railway freight and a continued rise in diesel prices,” UltraTech said.
There was some relief on lower prices of imported coal, the company said. However, it added the gain was negated by the weak rupee against the dollar. The company also gained from lower finance charges.
For the quarter ended March, the company’s performance beat estimates. While a Bloomberg consensus estimate showed analysts expected net profit of Rs 635 crore, the profit was Rs 838 crore, up 15.4 per cent from Rs 726 crore in the year-ago period. This resulted from a fall in the effective tax rate — from 33 per cent in the March quarter of FY13 to 14 per cent in the quarter ended March 2014. The company said tax expenses for the quarter were net of reversal of an earlier excess provision of Rs 95 crore.
For the March quarter, net sales were Rs 5,832 crore, up eight per cent from Rs 5,391 crore a year earlier and a tad higher than analysts’ estimates of Rs 5,774 crore.
At nine per cent, combined cement and clinker sales volume growth for the quarter was much higher than the four-six per cent estimated by most analysts; this suggests the company saw pressure on the realisation front. For FY14, UltraTech sold 41.47 million tonnes against 40.65 million tonnes in FY13.
