(Reuters) -Indian sugar maker E.I.D.-Parry reported a 46% rise in fourth-quarter profit before tax and exceptional items on Tuesday, boosted by strong performance in its distillery segment following recent capacity expansions. The company’s profit before tax and exceptional items rose to 1.61 billion rupees ($18.9 million) in the three months ended March 31, from 1.1 billion rupees a year earlier. Revenue from operations increased 13.5% to 8.14 billion rupees.
The company posted a 1.7% slide in revenue from its mainstay sugar segment, which was offset by a 19.8% rise in its distillery segment, which produces ethanol.
E.I.D.-Parry reported a loss after tax of 2.32 billion rupees due to an exceptional loss of 3.5 billion rupees due to impairment of investment in its subsidiary Parry Sugars Refinery India.
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KEY CONTEXT
The company said its sugar segment revenue declined due to lower crushing and production, impacted by reduced cane volume, higher cane costs, and weaker recoveries.
Sugar prices failed to keep pace with rising costs, it said.
However, the rise in revenue from its distillery segment helped cushion the bottom line, benefiting from improved capacity utilisation following recent expansion.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
months) months)
RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div
growth (%) growth (%) rating* analyst price yield
s target** (%)
E I D-Parry (India) 16.00 5.57 9.90 NULL Strong 1 1.06 0.80
Buy
Dalmia Bharat Sugar 11.63 7.51 4.82 -16.13 Hold 1 0.73 1.32
and Industries
Dwarikesh Sugar 11.23 5.65 29.43 146.71 Strong 2 0.74 1.02
Industries Buy
Balrampur Chini 19.03 14.73 9.93 19.38 Strong 6 0.83 0.54
Mills Buy
* 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
JANUARY-MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 85.3740 rupees
(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
