Shree Cement Ltd. is seeing strong improvement in its fourth quarter performance, driven by higher Ebitda per tonne, compared to Q3, according to Chairman HM Bangur.
The company's standalone revenue from operations fell 13% year-on-year to Rs 4,235 crore in the December quarter, but increased 14% sequentially. Ebitda jumped to Rs 947 crore from Rs 593 crore on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
Talking to NDTV Profit, Bangur stated Ebitda per tonne in Q3 was Rs 1,080, and Q4 is expected to be better than this.
While Bangur did not give total Ebitda per tonne projections for fiscal 2025, he expects the figure to be better in the fourth quarter.
Shree Cement's standalone net profit nosedived 69% YoY to Rs 229 crore from Rs 734 crore in the same period last fiscal. The chairman attributed the profit drop to the base effect.
“Demand growth is one part, but it is basically the base effect (that affected the Q3 results). Last year, the December quarter was by far the best in the company's history. But when we see sequentially, our volume growth is the highest in the industry,” he said.
“So far, profits are also healthy. But last year, this quarter was exceptionally good. Good power demand was there. Good margins were there. We had low-priced coal with us,” Bangur added.
However, going forward, the company plans to manage costs more effectively, which will help improve margins, the top executive mentioned.
“Going forward, you can see our cost control measures being much better. It is about 9% lower cost. Hence, we expect margins to be still better,” he said.
Shares of Shree Cement Ltd. rose 2.53% to touch an intraday high of Rs 27,510 apiece on the NSE on Friday. Shares were in the green at Rs 27,405.55 at 10:56 a.m., while benchmark Nifty 50 was up 0.74% at 23,421.05 points.
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