Focus on strong operational excellence helped Tata Chemicals witness a 32 per cent growth in its consolidated net profit at Rs 318.39 crore for the quarter ended December despite lower sales.
Company's net profit stood at Rs 241.84 crore in the corresponding quarter last year, it said today.
Income from operations, however, fell to Rs 3,494.8 crore in the third quarter of this fiscal from Rs 3,991.25 crore in the corresponding period of previous year.
"There was a decline in total income from operations during the third quarter as we did not sell any trade fertilisers and only sold our own manufactured fertiliser products," Tata Chemicals Managing Director R Mukundan told reporters here.
He said overall the third quarter registered good performance across businesses in the country as well as other geographies, in spite of challenges faced on several fronts.
"Strong focus on operational excellence helped maintain the steady performance of the Indian chemicals and consumer business. Our North American, European and African operations performed well due improved reliability of operations. We remain committed to our focus on driving best in class operational excellence," he added.
The company's North American operations registered increased production volume over the previous year, benefiting from improved plant reliability.
Its UK operations continued their improved performance on account of cost control and Kenya operations improves its product performance.
"Profit performance improved further across all units," Mukundan added.
He said recent products launched under the umbrella brand of 'Tata Sampann', have also been received well and are being made available across regions in the country.
"However, there has been a short term impact on performance post the government intervention on capping prices of pulses," he said.
The fertiliser business showed good performance driven
by tight focus on working capital and operational excellence backed on a normal monsoon and healthy demand, despite continued pressure of high subsidy outstanding at Rs 1,323 crore, Mukundan said.
Meanwhile, the consolidated net debt as on December 31, 2016, stood at Rs 5,883 crore against Rs 7,830 crore as on March 31, 2016.
"We have always maintained that to reduce the net debt in India to zero will take 4-5 quarters or a year or two," he said.
Talking about the last quarter, Mukundan said said, going forward the company will continue its focus on the delivering operational excellence across its business and driving growth in consumer products and speciality chemicals.
However, there will be pressure on margins due to sharp rise in prices of energy and coking coal, he added.
