BENGALURU (Reuters) – India Cements, in which market leader UltraTech Cement is taking majority control, posted a bigger first-quarter adjusted loss on Friday, hurt by subdued demand.
The South India-focused company’s loss before exceptional items and tax increased to 1.62 billion rupees ($19.3 million) in the quarter, from 989.1 million rupees a year ago.
The company said the latest quarter included an exceptional income of 2.41 billion rupees from the sale of a grinding unit.
Excluding that, India Cements posted its fifth straight quarterly loss in a stiffly contested market, which has forced companies to cut prices to keep market share.
KEY CONTEXT
The country’s general elections, which spanned half the April-June quarter, slowed down construction activity as did the extreme summer heat, dampening sales volumes.
Ramco Cements, Shree Cement and ACC have all missed profit estimates for the quarter.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
12 months) months)
RIC PE EV/EBITD Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div
A growth (%) growth rating* analysts price yiel
(%) target** d
(%)
India Cements 87.43 24.99 6.99 — Sell 5 2.09 0.00
Shree Cement 32.62 16.33 3.15 -7.06 Buy 16 0.86 0.43
Ramco Cements 36.52 13.34 6.24 21.87 Hold 21 0.96 0.30
ACC 20.28 10.88 6.27 3.51 Buy 19 0.83 0.32
* Mean of analysts’ ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** Ratio of the stock’s last close to analysts’ mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT APRIL-JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG — $1 = 83.9250 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Anisha Ajith in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
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