Oct 29 (Reuters) - Ambuja Cements, India's second-largest cement maker by capacity, reported a 34.7% drop in standalone adjusted quarterly profit on Thursday, pressured by higher fuel and freight costs.
Here are some details:
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Ambuja houses the cement business of Adani group along with its listed subsidiaries ACC and Orient Cement
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Net profit before exceptional items and tax fell 34.7% year-over-year to 1.69 billion rupees ($17.7 million) for the quarter ended September
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In the year-ago period, the firm had incurred a one-time exceptional charge of 2.23 billion rupees and a tax write-back of 11.80 billion rupees
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Standalone total expenses jumped 11.7% due to higher fuel and freight costs, while revenue from operations grew 9.6% to 61.13 billion rupees
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The firm said elevated fuel and logistics costs, driven by higher petcoke and coal prices, and increased diesel and packaging costs, continue to weigh on industry margins
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EBITDA per ton dropped to 770 rupees from 1,061 rupees a year ago, while EBITDA margin contracted to 13.8% from 19.2%
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"Following the recent 10-15 rupees price increase, the industry expects further pricing improvement over the next couple of months," CEO Vinod Bahety said
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Consolidated sales volumes fell to 16.5 million metric tons from 16.6 million tons a year ago
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The company, in the process of consolidating its cement operations, is targeting premiumisation over volume growth
($1 = 95.3025 Indian rupees)
Reporting by Vijay Malkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mrigank Dhaniwala
Source: Reuters