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Shares of Bharat Forge rose as much as 9.34 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 1,356.15 per share, on Wednesday.
The surge came after the company announced its March quarter results (Q4FY24), and gave a promising FY25 outlook.
Bharat Forge’s profit jumped over 59 per cent to Rs 389.6 crore in the March quarter of financial year 2024, from Rs 244.5 crore in the same quarter a year ago (Q4FY23).
The company’s revenue climbed 16.6 per cent to Rs 2,328.5 crore in Q4FY24, from Rs 1,997 crore in the same quarter previous fiscal.
Bharat Forge’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda), also known as operating profit, rose a little over 35 per cent on a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis to Rs 659 crore in March quarter of FY24, from Rs 488 crore in the same quarter a year ago.
Meanwhile, its Ebitda margin zoomed 320 basis points (bps) to 28.3 per cent in Q4FY24, from 24.4 per cent in the same quarter previous fiscal year.
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“For the full year, topline grew by 18.4 per cent to Rs 8,969 crore and Ebitda grew by 28.0 per cent to Rs 2,469 crore. A key driver of the strong performance was the fulfilment of defence export orders won by KSSL and the continued strong ramp-up of exports business across all business segments except oil & gas. The balance sheet continues to remain robust, with cash (net of long-term liability) of Rs 815 crore and sharp improvement in all key parameters,” Bharat Forge said.
Additionally, the executable order book stands at Rs 5,192 crore as of March 31, 2024.
“Over the past 2 years, the business has made tremendous progress in reducing its customer and sector concentration and has developed a more balanced business mix across automotive, construction & mining, hydraulics & wind energy. We have set up an AI/digital manufacturing centre, which will catalyse the engineering/ manufacturing activities and enable improvement in productivity and shorten time to market products,” said B N Kalyani, chairman & managing director of Bharat Forge.
FY25 outlook
At a consolidated level, Bharat Forge expects FY25 to be a year of growth driven by defence business, industrial casting business and continued improvement in capacity utilisation of the overseas business.
“The turnaround of the overseas business coupled with margin improvement in other business verticals should result in strong growth in profitability in FY25,” Kalyani added.
At 1:50 PM, shares of Bharat Forge were trading 8.66 per cent higher at Rs 1,347.55. By comparison, S&P BSE Sensex was trading 0.20 per cent at 73,363.31 levels.
