Agrochemicals manufacturer UPL Limited on May 13 reported a 95 percent drop in net profit at Rs 40 crore in the quarter ended March 31, 2024, from Rs 792 crore in the year-ago period. However, the profit jumped nearly 97 percent in the reported quarter from a loss of Rs 1,217 crore in the December quarter.
Following the announcement in the stock exchanges, shares of UPL jumped close to six percent to Rs 531.8 on BSE at 03:00 pm on May 13.
The Mumbai-headquartered company’s revenue also declined to Rs 14,078 crore in the fourth quarter from Rs 16,569 crore in the same period last year, a drop of 15 percent, the filing showed.
The company also declared a dividend of Rs 1 per equity share.
In the earnings presentation, UPL informed stock exchanges that the company intends to grow EBITDA by over 50 percent and expects a 4-8 percent revenue growth for FY25. It will be using $300-400 million worth of operational cash to pare down debt on books. For the current financial year, UPL aims to improve margins, and generate cash through better working capital cycle and optimized inventory. The street strongly responded to the positive commentary on outlook, taking the shares sharply higher.
UPL's Q4FY24 margins were hit by a 'transitory impact' of higher rebates and liquidation of costlier inventory, which the company hopes to normalize in the second half of FY25, it said.
Commenting on the Q4FY24 performance, Mike Frank, CEO, UPL Corporation Ltd., said: “We delivered significantly improved financial results in Q4 versus the two preceding quarters, inspite of the prevailing
volatile and challenging market conditions. As compared to Q3, volumes recovered well and were in-line with LY, largely led by the strong performance of our high-margin differentiated and sustainable portfolio, which contributed 36 percent of crop protection revenue vs 29 percent LY."
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